The UFC wasted little time laying down the law on Matt Mitrione, suspending the heavyweight indefinitely for transphobic comments regarding Fallon Fox he made during an interview with Ariel Helwani Monday on "The MMA Hour."
Fox was born a man and underwent gender reassignment surgery in 2006 and has had two fights as a professional mixed martial artist, winning both.
Mitrione repeatedly referred to Fox as a he and called her as "a lying, sick, sociopathic disgusting freak."
"Because she's not a he. He's a he," he said. "He's chromosomally a man. He had a gender change, not a sex change. He's still a man. He was a man for 31 years. Thirty-one years. That's a couple years younger than I am. He's a man. Six years of taking performance de-hancing drugs, you think is going to change all that? That's ridiculous.
"That is a lying, sick, sociopathic, disgusting freak," Mitrione said. "And I mean that. Because you lied on your license to beat up women. That's disgusting. You should be embarrassed yourself. And the fact that Florida licensed him because California licensed him or whoever the hell did it, it's an embarrassment to us as fighters, as a sport, and we all should protest that. The woman that's fighting him, props to you. I hope you beat his ass, and I hope he gets blackballed and never fights again, because that's disgusting and I'm appalled by that."
The UFC, which announced a fighter code of conduct in January, moved swiftly to suspend Mitrione and denounce his comments.
"The UFC was appalled by the transphobic comments made by heavyweight Matt Mitrione today in an interview on 'The MMA Hour.' The organization finds Mr. Mitrione’s comments offensive and wholly unacceptable and - as a direct result of this significant breach of the UFC’s code of conduct – Mr. Mitrione’s UFC contract has been suspended and the incident is being investigated. The UFC is a friend and ally of the LGBT community, and expects and requires all 450 of its athletes to treat others with dignity and respect."
The exact length of Mitrione's suspension has yet to be released.
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