Dana White kept his council over whether he would be willing to allow transgender fighters to compete in the UFC.
During a recent appearance on Logan Paul's Impaulsive podcast, the UFC president was asked whether or not fans could ever expect to see a female fighter who had transitioned appear in the octagon. But he remained coy with his answer, instead directing the conversation to the controversial Fallon Fox, who competed almost a decade ago in other organisations.
The Chicago-based fighter, who was in her late 30s when she debuted in the sport, drew the ire of many pundits as she racked up a 5-1 professional record before retiring in 2014. Among Fox's critics were UFC commentator Joe Rogan, who believed that her being born male gave her too much of an advantage in the sport.
And White echoed those sentiments almost a decade later when speaking with Paul and co-hosts Mike Majlak and George Janko, telling them that transgender fighters had already competed in the sport. “It happened in our sport,” White explained. “There was a fighter named Fallon Fox, who was a male fighter who became a woman.
"He was a male fighter who became a woman. He was out there beating the s*** out of women, left and right. And then he finally ran into the wrong woman and she beat his a**." When Paul corrected White that Fox should be referred to as "she", the UFC president laughed off the comment, before saying "Yeah".
There are a number of transgender athletes currently competing in a variety of sports, including MMA fighter Alana McLaughlin who won her debut fight on Combate Global last September. The 38-year-old, the first openly transgender athlete to compete in the sport since Fox, defeated Celine Provost with a rear naked choke, but has yet to set a date for her return.
Would you like to see transgender athletes compete in the UFC? Let us know in the comments section below!
McLaughlin is a former member of the U.S. Army Special Forces, and despite coming out in 2003, she was denied gender reassignment surgery until 2016. After her debut, she was subject to a number of messages criticising her for competing against cisgender women, but clapped back and admitted that she had been "beat on" for most of the fight.
"Good morning, friends, supporters and others!" She said in a social media post after the fight showing off her battle scars. "I'm getting a lot of variations of the same nasty messages calling me a cheater like I didn't just get beat on for a round and a half.
"Y'all need to show Celine some respect and take your concern trolling elsewhere. She almost finished me more than once, and on scorecards she definitely won that first round. This is the only post I'll make about this. Transphobes are just making my block hand stronger."
