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Do Transgender Fighters Have An Advantage? Ashlee Evans-Smith Weighs In

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A little bit of MMA trivia:

Who is the only fighter to defeat Fallon Fox?

A: Ashlee Evans-Smith.

A native of the San Francisco Bay area, Evans-Smith (6-3 overall, 3-2 UFC) battles Andrea Lee (9-2) tonight on the UFC on ESPN undercard. Making it the perfect time to stroll down memory lane, to the day nearly four years ago when I interviewed Evans-Smith. I asked the Menlo College grad for her thoughts on facing a transgender fighter, her college wrestling career, and women (finally) being prominently featured in the UFC and on MMA’s biggest stages.

My interview with Ashlee Evans-Smith at the Hard Rock casino & hotel in Las Vegas:

http://https://youtu.be/F5JdJVtMZKE

On facing and beating transgender fighter Fallon Fox, Evans-Smith said:

“It was a very unique and rare situation. I was already in the tournament; it was for $20,000, it was for a belt, it was my introduction to my pro career.

“I had set this goal for myself that I would win all three fights at the tournament, be 3-0 as a fighter, win all this money and have this belt… and when it came out that she had not told anybody in the first round and then semi-finals that she was transgender… I basically told myself, ‘It doesn’t matter if I have to find her or anyone… I wasn’t going to let anyone stand in the way of the money and the belt and starting my career by winning three fights in a row.”

“I feel like scientifically there’s not enough evidence proof to show bone density advantages… they didn’t even test her testosterone levels in that fight, not at all… I think that’s not fair.

“If you’re in that kind of situation where you have a natural-born woman fighting a transgender, I think it’s only fair to test testosterone levels, and they didn’t do that. So) there’s a lot of reasons why I think it shouldn’t be allowed.

“(But) I think everyone should be allowed to fight, so for now, even though there’s not that many fighters out there, I think there should be a Transgender League, until they make a few more tests or clarify the advantages or disadvantages.”

Why Menlo College?

“This is going to sound completely Meathead, jock status… but I really did go to college to wrestle.

“I was this little punk rocker in high school, had no dreams of being a journalist or even going to college, but I joined the wrestling in high school, fell in love with that and then got recruited to wrestle in college.

“I wanted to wrestle so I went to college and along the way I got a college degree. I found out that I truly love interviewing people, just like this… getting the story, meeting new people. So I wrote for the (college) newspaper for four years and became the editor for two years. I thought that’s what I wanted to do… but when I graduated college… Eugene Jackson, former Strikeforce (fighter) found me.

“I started fighting under him and journalism went out the window. I fell in love with MMA.”

Was there ever a time where you questioned if women would have the same opportunities in big league MMA?

“I never questioned it, not once,” Evans-Smith told me. “Coming up as a female wrestler in a male-dominated sport… but slowly in my high school and college years I got to see the sport grow. So when I got into MMA, it at about the same baby, infant stage as I (experienced) in wrestling… and I knew it would grow like wrestling did. Wrestling was the number one growing sport when I was in high school and college.

“When I got into MMA I just saw a really bright future… I don’t know if it will surpass (the popularity) of men’s (sports)… but I knew this day was coming.”

 

 

“Stink Police” Sniff Out Provo Scents

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(This article, bylined by Frank Curreri Forza, originally appeared on the front page of the Deseret News Dec. 10, 1999. In the General Reporting category, the story earned 3rd Place in the Utah-Idaho-Spokane Associated Press Association). 

Officially, Dixon Holmes and Roger Gonzalez are zoning enforcement officers. But in this city that is increasingly concerned about how it smells, their job duties are on the verge of expanding.

Led by their noses, Gonzalez and Holmes are part of a small but elite fraternity responsible for determining what is putrid in Provo. They are two of the five members of Provo’s new “Stink Police” — its super sniffers du jour.

“I wouldn’t say it’s one of the more favorable things to do,” Gonzalez said.

That Gonzalez, Holmes and their peers must now referee scents throughout the city was born of necessity and last resort.

Hundreds of callers, particularly residents in the Maeser, Provost and Spring Creek areas, lit up phone lines at city offices last year complaining of potent foul odors in the city’s air.

Roughly 340 of those complaints blamed John Kuhni & Sons Inc., a rendering plant in southeast Provo where millions of dead animal carcasses are burned annually.

Some callers reported the stench was so profuse it made them ill, forced them to leave work early or abandon play at a local golf course.

Since Provo passed a strict new law in July, beginning next month Kuhni’s could be cited for violations, fined or even have its license revoked if it commits more than six odor infractions during a one-year period.

The final verdict on whether Kuhni’s has violated the smell test will rest within the nostrils of the city’s five zoning officers.

“It’s not just, ‘Can we smell it,” Holmes said of the odor threshold for citation. “It’s, ‘Is this really rank?’”

The super sniffers are low-key, casually-dressed sorts who wear jeans or khakis with sneakers on the job.

They are usually dispatched in teams of two after a complaint has been made by a local resident or business.

Empty-handed, the odor investigators carry no special equipment nor high tech devices to measure particulates in the air. Rather, once they arrive on the scene, they put the windows down or get out of the car, inhale the air and await whatever sensation ensues. During a recent smelling survey of a southeast Provo neighborhood, Holmes and Gonzalez demonstrated the technique — otherwise known as breathing.

“I’m smellin’ a little Pacific States (Co.) right now,” Holmes observed.

“Yeah, a little more metallic, industrial smell,” Gonzalez added.

A handful of culprits account for almost all of Provo’s funkiest odors: Kuhni’s the city’s own water sewage treatment plant and compost yard; Pacific States (which sells tiles and pipes) and Reilly Tar and Chemical Co.

Gonzalez jokes that he had to go to “Smelling School” to hone his skills, but actually “the only training we got was learning to identify different types of odors,” Holmes said.

Distinguishing between the five primary odors affecting Provo is quite simple, the investigators said.

Provo’s water sewage treatment plant, Holmes explained, “has a little bit of the rotten egg smell.”

Gonzalez grimly describes Kuhni’s — allegedly the worst smell in Provo — as a “burnt, fleshy smell” that “you can almost taste.”

Holmes characterizes the Kuhni sensory assault as “rotten dog food.”

But under the city’s odor ordinance, Kuhni’s is only in violation if its smell is at or below a level deemed “reasonably offensive or noxious to a reasonable person.” So merely detecting a mild odor is not sufficient for issuing a citation.

The key question: How do you define “reasonable person?”

Bruce Baird, attorney for Kuhni’s, has argued that smell — like a person’s taste in music or clothing — is subjective and varies from person to person. What one person finds repulsive, Baird reasoned, another may not.

Super sniffers and City Attorney Gary McGinn don’t deny that smell is prone to personal preferences but maintain the “reasonable person” standard is fair and as objective as possible.

“We think we’re pretty reasonable,” McGinn said. “My wife thinks I’m pretty reasonable. Dixon Holmes is the most reasonable person I know.

“I can’t think of a better person than Dixon to go out and routinely smell Kuhni’s.”

Jessica Aguilar: Hollywood’s Loss is MMA’s Gain

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Editor’s Note: This story was originally published on WSOF.com (Jan. 31, 2014)

By Frank Forza

More than a decade ago Jessica Aguilar left Houston for Hollywood. Her acting ambitions didn’t pan out quite the way Aguilar had expected, but film directors in Tinseltown would do well to reconsider the spunky 31-year-old Latina whose life is rich with tragic and uplifting storylines.

MMA’s top-ranked female strawweight is one of the few openly gay fighters in the sport and says her megawatt smile masks the pain of her father dying when she was six years old and a car accident that killer her older brother. In heartfelt and extraordinarily candid detail, the Miami-based trailblazer and engaging WSOF champion recently talked about Mariachi bands, luchador masks, being lesbian, acting roles in an Italian movie and the Showtime hit series ‘Dexter,’ and years of hiding her MMA career from an old-fashioned Mexican mother (and what prompted her to eventually break the news to mama).

ON BEING OPENLY GAY:

I’m a very private person but the main reason I felt comfortable coming out in public is that I want people to be comfortable with themselves and not hide who they are. I just want to make a difference.

MORE DIFFICULT FOR A MALE ATHLETE TO COME OUT?

I don’t know when the first major male fighter will come out. I hope someone does it soon but I don’t know when it will happen. It’s easier for a woman to come out. The guys are perceived to be more macho, so it’s different for them. It’s a double standard.

SECRET LIFE OF A FIGHTER

I’ve been fighting professionally for eight years. I finally told my mom two years ago that I was a fighter. My mother worries; she’s very old-fashioned and protective. I didn’t know at the time which direction my fight career was going. So I thought, ‘If this gets really serious and I become No. 1 in the world then I’ll tell her.’

I waited for the right time and I told her. I had to tell her really quick because I had done an interview for Univision that was going to air later that night. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh! She watches the Univision news so I want to tell her before she sees me on TV!’

So I called her up and said, ‘Mom, there’s something I wanted to tell you.’

She’s like, ‘Are you Ok!’?

I said, ‘Yes, I’m OK. I just want to tell you what I do for work because I’m going to come out on TV. Yo peleo (I fight). Yo peleo artes marciales mixtas en el jaula. (I fight MMA in the cage).’

Mom: ‘Que quieres decir con la jaula?! (What do you mean in a cage!?)’

She really didn’t understand, and she wasn’t happy with what I’m doing. She was very concerned about me getting injured so we talked about it a lot more over time. Gradually, slowly, as I explained what MMA is, she became more comfortable with what I do. Even to this day I’m still teaching her.

‘WORRIED’ MOM MUSTERS COURAGE TO ATTEND A FIGHT

My last fight in Japan (in October 2013)I took her with me and she got to see me fight for the first time. That was a very good experience for her because the people in Japan are so respectful. I didn’t bring her to my WSOF title fight (in Miami) because there was a lot going and I didn’t want her to worry. The experience is a little bit different here in the states; there are people screaming, there’s a lot going on.

MORE DIFFICULT: TELLING MOM YOU’RE AN MMA FIGHTER OR GAY?

Telling my mom that I’m a fighter was a lot easier than telling her I was gay.

‘LIKE ANTS’ IN CALIFORNIA

California obviously has a lot of Mexicans but you hardly ever see Mexicans in Miami. People don’t even think I’m Mexican when I’m in Miami ‘ they confuse me for being Spanish, South American or Brazilian because I also speak Portuguese.

When I tell them I’m Mexican they say, ‘Really? You don’t look Mexican!’ But in California, we’re I’m visiting a friend right now, we’re everywhere. We’re like ants in California.

MEXICAN ROOTS

My family is from Veracruz, Mexico. It’s four hours from Mexico City. It’s down south by the beach.
Growing up, we always spoke Spanish inside the home. It’s still only Espanol whenever I visit my mom.

THE MEXICAN FIGHTER

Fighting is in the blood. We’re also very disciplined, really hard-working people so it’s part of our culture and part of who we are. There is no giving up.

THE MEXICAN DIET

I love my Mexican food but I don’t eat Mexican food much during my camps. I do eat the good fats ‘ avocado, nuts and olive oil ‘ but I stay away from the tortillas, refried beans and stuff like that. My favorite Mexican food is enchiladas. My family in Mexico they have restaurants called ‘Las Enchiladas’ and they have so many different salsas, mole, green, red. So I would go with that and the white cheese on top. Ummmm, my mouth is watering now!

MEXICO CITY IN HER SIGHTS

We’re going to have one playing when I fight in Mexico. I’m coming out with the Mariachi band and my own mask. People will be in the stands wearing my masks. It’s going to be really cool.

TRI-LINGUAL

I speak Spanish, English and Portuguese.

ACTING ROLES

I had a role in an Italian film, ‘Christmas in Miami,’ I played a nurse. I was in a few scenes. In Dexter (on Showtime), I played an extra. I was a forensic investigator and we found a body on the beach. But it wasn’t a speaking role, I was just an extra.

I see myself doing more acting in the future. That’s always been something I’ve wanted to do. I’m a professional fighter and that gives me the platform to do whatever else I want to do. So I would love more opportunities like that. I’m actually waiting for a phone call from (actor) Danny Trejo. His manager called me yesterday and wants to introduce me to Michelle Rodriguez, who is in ‘The Fast and The Furious.’

WHAT ACTING ROLES WOULD INTEREST YOU MOST?

I love being a clown so probably some comedies, and I would love to do some action roles, too. There are a lot of actors I like but my favorites are Adam Sandler, Angelina Jolie and Sofia Vergara ‘ she’s hilarious.

TOUGH JOB: CORRECTIONS OFFICER

I worked at a juvenile corrections facility, both male and female. I moved from California to Oregon and that was the only job I could get back then with the state. I would call my mom every day and asking where my nieces and nephews were; I just saw a lot of things going on there. It was a crazy, weird experience but I enjoyed it because I had to treat people with respect no matter what they did. I didn’t know I could do that. I really didn’t like it because I was worried all the time. One thing that was cool ‘ I learned a few (martial arts) moves. So I did my first combat training there.

I remember reading the files before kids came in. The files would tell you what a kid was coming in for; if they were dangerous; if they were on drugs or a violent background, if they had disorders. It was hard and sad to read through those files and see what those kids had been through. I knew I didn’t want to pursue that career. It was too much.

SETTING THE RECORD FOR SMILES DURING WALK TO THE CAGE

It’s a way of me coping. My family is very happy and positive, but just because I smile a lot doesn’t mean that there’s no pain or nothing going on inside. That’s just the way I cope. I don’t like to share the bad with people. I don’t feel comfortable talking publicly about the death of my father or my brother. I like to share the good and the positive. I’d rather transmit happiness, positivity and good energy than the bad stuff. So that’s why I smile so much.

HER WSOF BELT

That thing is heavy! It’s at my house right now. I’m going to buy a display case for it, but I’m not sure where I’m going to keep it yet.