The term MMA generally refers to training in a competitive style of martial arts that incorporates grappling, stand-up fighting, takedowns, throws, and submissions. In addition to the aforementioned styles, hybrid martial arts forms include the following. The girls on this list are from all different MMA leagues and rankings. Some of them are much better fighters than others but that doesn’t really matter here. On this list, the hottest and best looking MMA fighters rise to the top. Here are the top 25 hottest female fighters in the sport today. The technique is designed to convert the different parts of your body into different commonly used weapons of war. The hands become daggers and swords; the elbows strike like a hammer or mace; the knees cut like an axe, the legs bash like a staff and the shins and forearms protect the body like a suit of armor. Video of Muay Thai. Physically, these two couldn’t be more different. Chandler has the typical wrestler’s build. He’s a 5’8” brick shit house with short, strong limbs. Dan Hooker is long, lean and powerful at 6’ with a 75” reach. It’s a perfect build for his kickboxing/BJJ style.
Fallon Fox | |
---|---|
Born | November 29, 1975 (age 45) Toledo, Ohio, U.S. |
Nationality | American |
Height | 5 ft 7 in (1.70 m) |
Weight | 144 lb (65 kg; 10.3 st)[1] |
Division | Featherweight (2012–present) |
Reach | 70 in (178 cm) |
Fighting out of | Schaumburg, Illinois |
Team | Midwest Training Center |
Years active | 2012–2014 |
Mixed martial arts record | |
Total | 6 |
Wins | 5 |
By knockout | 3 |
By submission | 2 |
Losses | 1 |
By knockout | 1 |
By decision | 0 |
Mixed martial arts record from Sherdog |
Fallon Fox (born November 29, 1975) is an American retired MMA (mixed martial arts) fighter. She is the first openly transgender athlete in MMA history.[2][3][4][5]
Fox was born in Toledo, Ohio, where she was assigned male at birth. She recalls struggling with her gender as early as age five or six.[3] As a teenager, Fox believed she may have been a gay man, but learned the term transgender at the age of 17.[2] Fox continued living as a heterosexual man and married her then-girlfriend at the age of 19, when the latter became pregnant with their daughter. Fox then joined the US Navy to support her new family and served as an operations specialist on the USS Enterprise.[3]
After leaving the Navy, Fox enrolled at the University of Toledo, but dropped out after ongoing psychological stress from her unresolved gender issues.[3] After leaving college, Fox worked as a truck driver in order to afford sex reassignment surgery. She moved to Chicago, Illinois, with her daughter. In 2006, Fox traveled to Bangkok, Thailand, to undergo gender reassignment surgery, breast augmentation, and hair transplant surgeries at Bangkok National Hospital.[3]
Fallon Fox came out as transgender on March 5, 2013, during an interview with Outsports writer Cyd Zeigler and Sports Illustrated, following her two initial professional fights in the women's division.[6][7] Controversy swelled over confusion with the California State Athletic Commission (CSAC) and Florida's athletic commission over the licensing process Fox chose to complete in Coral Gables. After publications shed light on the licensing procedure and Fox's coming out many commentators brought up the issue of whether a woman who was assigned male at birth should be able to fight in women's divisions in MMA fighting.[7]
UFCcolor commentator and stand-up comedian Joe Rogan opposed Fallon Fox receiving licensing, saying,[8]
First of all, she's not really a she. She's a transgender, post-op person. The operation doesn't shave down your bone density. It doesn't change. You look at a man's hands and you look at a woman's hands and they're built different. They're just thicker, they're stronger, your wrists are thicker, your elbows are thicker, your joints are thicker. Just the mechanical function of punching, a man can do it much harder than a woman can, period.
Due to controversy and the licensing procedure CFA co-founder Jorge De La Noval, who promoted Fox's fight on March 2 in Florida, postponed Fox's April 20 fight. However, De La Noval later stated his organization will not 'turn our backs on her... As long as she's licensed, she's always welcome in our promotion. We stand behind her and we give her all of our support.'[3] Fox claimed in her video interview with Cyd Zeigler to be within the rules of organizations like the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for postoperative transsexuals and wishes to continue fighting in MMA.[citation needed]
On April 8, 2013, Matt Mitrione, in an appearance on The MMA Hour, said that Fox was 'still a man', and called Fox an 'embarrassment' and a 'lying, sick, sociopathic, disgusting freak'. UFC 'was appalled by the transphobic comments' he made,[9] and, referring to itself as 'a friend and ally of the LGBT community', immediately suspended Mitrione,[10] and fined him an undisclosed amount.[11] The next day Fox issued a response stating that Mitrione 'personally attacked me as a fighter, as a woman, and as a human being'.[12]
Whether or not Fox possesses an advantage over cisgender female fighters was a topic on the April 2014 edition of HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel.[13]
In an interview with the New York Post, former UFC women's bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey stated she would be willing to fight Fox, saying 'I can knock out anyone in the world',[14] although she believes Fox has male bone density and structure, leading to an unfair advantage.[15] In an interview with Out, Rousey said: 'I feel like if you go through puberty as a 'man' it's not something you can reverse. ... There's no undo button on that.'[16] UFC president Dana White claimed that 'bone structure is different, hands are bigger, jaw is bigger, everything is bigger' and said 'I don't think someone who used to be a man and became a woman should be able to fight a woman.'[17]
During Fox's fight against Tamikka Brents, 2014-09-13, Brents suffered a concussion, an orbital bone fracture, and seven staples to the head in the 1st round. After her loss, Brents took to social media to convey her thoughts on the experience of fighting Fox: 'I've fought a lot of women and have never felt the strength that I felt in a fight as I did that night. I can't answer whether it's because she was born a man or not because I'm not a doctor. I can only say, I've never felt so overpowered ever in my life and I am an abnormally strong female in my own right,' she stated. 'Her grip was different, I could usually move around in the clinch against other females but couldn't move at all in Fox's clinch...'[18]
Eric Vilain, the director of the Institute For Society And Genetics at UCLA, worked with the Association of Boxing Commissions when they wrote their policy on transgender athletes. He stated in Time magazine that 'Male to female transsexuals have significantly less muscle strength and bone density, and higher fat mass, than males'[11] and said that, to be licensed, transgender female fighters must undergo complete 'surgical anatomical changes ..., including external genitalia and gonadectomy' and subsequently a minimum of two years of hormone replacement therapy, administered by a board certified specialist. In general concurrence with peer-reviewed scientific literature,[19] he states this to be 'the current understanding of the minimum amount of time necessary to obviate male hormone gender related advantages in sports competition'. Vilain reviewed Fox's medical records and said she has 'clearly fulfilled all conditions.'[2] When asked if Fox could, nonetheless, be stronger than her competitors, Vilain replied that it was possible, but noted that 'sports is made up of competitors who, by definition, have advantages for all kinds of genetics reasons'.[11] Fox herself responded to the controversy with an analogy comparing herself to Jackie Robinson in a guest editorial for a UFC and MMA news website:[20]
Has anybody ever watched the movie 42? Remember when commentators said Jackie Robinson had an unfair advantage because black people had 'larger heel bones' than the white men he was competing with? Are we repeating history yet again with bogus bone claims? Can we couple these bogus claims with Rogan's horrible language that was aimed at me from the video I put out last week? I'm a transgender woman. I deserve equal treatment and respect to other types of women. I feel that all of this is so ridiculously unnecessary and horribly mean spirited.
The documentary Game Face provides an inside look into Fox's life during the beginning of her MMA controversy.[21]
Fox was raised by devout Christians but has become an atheist.[22]
Professional record breakdown | ||
6 matches | 5 wins | 1 loss |
By knockout | 3 | 1 |
By submission | 2 | 0 |
By decision | 0 | 0 |
Res. | Record | Opponent | Method | Event | Date | Round | Time | Location | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Win | 5–1 | Tamikka Brents | TKO (punches) | CCCW: The Undertaking | September 13, 2014 | 1 | 2:17 | Springfield, Illinois, United States | |
Win | 4–1 | Heather Bassett | Submission (armbar) | Xtreme Fighting Organization 50 | March 21, 2014 | 2 | 0:44 | Chicago, Illinois, United States | |
Loss | 3–1 | Ashlee Evans-Smith | TKO (punches) | CFA 12 | October 12, 2013 | 3 | 4:15 | Coral Gables, Florida, United States | Women's Featherweight Tournament Final |
Win | 3–0 | Allanna Jones | Submission (shin choke) | CFA 11: Kyle vs. Wiuff 2 | May 24, 2013 | 3 | 3:36 | Coral Gables, Florida, United States | |
Win | 2–0 | Ericka Newsome | KO (knee) | CFA 10: McSweeney vs. Staring | March 2, 2013 | 1 | 0:39 | Coral Gables, Florida, United States | Women's Featherweight Tournament Semifinal |
Win | 1–0 | Elisha Helsper | TKO (injury) | KOTC Wild Card | May 17, 2012 | 1 | 2:00 | Worley, Idaho, United States |
Amateur record breakdown | ||
1 match | 1 win | 0 losses |
By submission | 1 | 0 |
Res. | Record | Opponent | Method | Event | Date | Round | Time | Location | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Win | 1–0 | Rickie Gomes | Submission (armbar) | Rocktown Showdown 12 | June 10, 2011 | 1 | 2:27 | Rockford, Illinois, United States |
In 2014, Fox was inducted into the National Gay and Lesbian Sports Hall of Fame.[23]
Grappling position | |
---|---|
Two wrestlers in a clinch, using over- and underhooks |
A grappling position refers to the positioning and holds of combatants engaged in grappling. Combatants are said to be in a neutral position if neither is in a more favourable position. If one party has a clear advantage such as in the mount they are said to be in a 'dominant position'. Conversely, the other party is considered to be in an inferior position, usually called 'on the bottom', but in this case sometimes called the 'under mount'.
Called clinch position or standing grappling position, these are the core of clinch fighting. From a separated stand-up position, a clinch is the result of one or both fighters applying a clinch hold. The process of attempting to advance into more dominant clinch positions is known as pummelling.
The major types of standing clinch are such as:
Fighters may attempt to break from the clinch, either as the rule requires it as in boxing or because they wish to obtain a better position by moving out and re-engaging, If the clinch continues, fighters may attempt to strike, takedown or throw an opponent. This may result in a win, or the start of ground grappling.
Positioning is the foundation of ground fighting, if one combatant is controlling an opponent from a top position, such as if they are pinning the opponent to the ground, then that combatant is said to have the top position, while their opponent is said to have the bottom position. Top positions are usually dominant as fighters can use their weight to their advantage, but depending on the set of rules used, it can have notable exceptions such as the guard. A dominant ground position is usually easier to obtain for the person who initiated the throw or takedown. It may be possible for a fighter in a dominant position to score points or win by pinning their opponent, applying a submission hold or striking.
There is a rough hierarchy of major ground grappling positions from the most advantageous to the least for the 'top' fighter:
A reversal from a dominant or top position is called a sweep; these are usually the aim of a fighter in the bottom position, though there are some submissions that can be executed from the bottom, most commonly from the guard. While a position may be considered dominant in one sport, that may not be the case in another: for example, the closed guard in BJJ may be dominant in terms of submission; in mixed martial arts (MMA), however, where striking is allowed, while the guard still offers submission opportunities and defence, the fighter on top can strike better than the one on the bottom so the position is usually viewed as neutral in MMA and Budo Moussaraa MMA. Wrestling is different again, viewing the guard as inferior due to the risk of being pinned.