I remember when there was no weight class in ufc. Really there was no rules except you couldn't do low blow or bite. But kick em in the head if you want while there down. Was fun to watch actually remember watching a very cool fight where a light heavy weight sized guy went to work on a big ole sumo. Ended up knocking him out. Those where the days when tank Abbott would come out and under style of fighting it said bar fighter, and he would even have a beer in the cage. Couple rules made it boring you could just wrap a guy up in a grapple move and nothing happens forever and they didn't make them stand up. Gracie did that all the time.

I support her feelings that she's a woman, socially I think we can all agree we should accept her as such. But biologically speaking she has not been for the vast majority of her life (including the most crucial development periods like childhood and puberty), so comparing her to other girls in a system which is ostensibly trying to match fighters as closely as possible seems unfair. Even if she has identical bone density and muscle structure you can't account for more nebulous aspects of testosterone that some guys have like the mental makeup that can turn them into competitive blood-hungry maniacs (I've never heard a woman threatening to eat babies like Tyson, for instance). Hormones are a hell of a thing, but we aren't at the point where we know the entire impact of them on the human body, and there isn't any evidence I know of that says 7 years of estrogen completely erases 30 years of development with testosterone. Is there?

mental makeup? i think personal temperament is flimsy. we'd have to assess biological women on those metrics as well and that seems silly.

Fallon "The Queen of Swords" Fox MMA Stats, Pictures, News, Videos, Biography - Sherdog.com

So Fallon Fox isn't undefeated, and interestingly she looks more 'womanly' than several other fighters. For example Cristiane "Cyborg" Justino MMA Stats, Pictures, News, Videos, Biography - Sherdog.com.

Cyborg has also tested positive for anabolic steroids in the past and received a year ban.

From what I've read, Fallon has received a lot of criticism because she appears to be smashing her opponents with strength rather than skill. Though this same criticism has been levelled at Cyborg (though perhaps not as loudly).

A lot of the criticism around the how thorough the UFC regulations are regarding transgender women point to the lack of data and scientific understanding on the effects of bone structure (not just density) and in particular muscle retention (endurance and the effects of aerobic exercise).

As a side note, the effects of bone structure that people are concerned about are:
- the size of the shoulders; this can provide a mechanical advantage in combat due to the higher levels of torque the body can produce to swing a punch etc.
- the orientation of the legs to the hip bones and the thickness of the leg bones. The shape of women's hip bones are different to a males because of the pressure placed on the body when undergoing child birth. The difference in shape if I recall correctly makes it easier for a woman's leg to angle sidewards (sidesplits), at a cost of being unable to deliver as much forward thrust power through the legs as males.

More than that, she absorbs the initial barrage that everyone fighting her seems to think they need to come out of the gate with, then they tire themselves out and she can dismantle them or just knock them out (or in the case of Tamikka Brents, smash her orbital bone, the long term effects of which we don't yet know.) She's not a bad fighter, but she isn't great either. She can outlast people a decade or more younger than she is, some that are bigger than her even, because she can take hits than no other woman can. (Maybe Cyborg and Rousey can too. But they're better at not getting hit in the same way.)

We don't even fully understand how or why a person gets knocked out, so to know what effect having at some point been male might have on fighting women is impossible.

The anecdotal evidence is: you can get hit on the button over and over and not go down and you can punch people's eyes out.

This is a very very good point.

I've seen some evidence for people with larger jaws withstanding more force before concussion. It would be interesting to see an research piece on the structural difference in male and female jaw development and the resultant propensity for concussion.

From my (admittedly limited) understanding of the complex biological details I'd actually argue that changes in hormone levels have a pretty high impact on your mental state.

A lot of the physical changes are mainly fat redistribution, because yeah our sexy boobs/hips/butts are pretty much fat deposits. Depending on your diet & exercise you can work to maintain muscle & bone density and of course the actual bone structure never goes away as was pointed out in previous posts.

Yeah I watched that Tamika brents fight. That was it for me. I thought immediately this just ain't fair. Then heard all the damage she did. Damage that doesn't happen in WMMA, and heard Tamika say that she has never felt such power in a fight or felt so helpless. Tamika is not a little helpless girl she is a bad woman. For her to say that told me alot.


Fallon left Tamika right

It does have a large impact, and in this case it probably wouldn't be a benefit to Fallon Fox.

Women are better at handling fluctuating hormone levels than men because of how the female system is setup. I would imagine that if you transitioned from a male to female body then you would face quite a few psychological challenges to balance out your mental state when you start taking oestrogen. You would probably feel quite bipolar for the first few years as your brain and body adjusted.

Hmm...