After their fight, the Fodors remain a house divided

Caros Fodor and his little brother Ben Fodor fought last Saturday night, with Caros winning a decision. On the outside, the fight was met with plenty of squirms. The idea of half-siblings literally trying to do each other harm in a cage crossed a threshold that a lot of people couldn’t understand. Ben and Caros’ mom, Susan, didn’t attend the show. She was one of those.On the inside, it was more complicated.If the fight was meant to resolve some deeper sibling conflict that a broader public wouldn’t fully grasp, it didn’t. Ben Fodor — known more famously by his crime fighting alter ego, “Phoenix Jones” — was visibly shaken before the fight, getting emotional in an interview with the World Series of Fighting’s Joey Varner. Yet he still can’t stand the sight of Caros after the fight. He has estranged himself from his family at least temporarily, and says he has no intention of reconciling with Caros ever again. He says he understands forever is a big word. Forever’s a big word.Then again he prides himself on being a man of conviction.”No, we’re not talking,” Ben told MMA Fighting. “After the fight I kind of just walked off to spend some time along in the woods for a while, and when I came back the next day I went over to my brother’s house to apologize and bury the hatchet. I went over there, and he was having this little party. I walked into the bathroom and I was like, yo, I want to apologize, that didn’t go down the way I thought it was going to, and I don’t feel much better. I said I was super-sorry, and I gave him a hug.”But the minute he touched me I just wanted to hit in the face again. I realized, you know what, I just don’t like this motherf*cker. And I was like, ‘I’m not going to like you, bro.’ And he said, ‘why did you come over here if your intention was just to hit me in the face.’”The stories of why they fought in the first place shatter off into many emotional shards and indiscretions. Caros pulled a Carbine 15 on Ben when they were younger, and shot him right in the stomach. It was a blank round. A prank. They have fought at birthday parties and holidays. They have fought as adults. They have fought in training. It was inevitable, they said, that they would fight officially within the sanctioned walls of a cage. Emotional baggage went into the matchmaking. The fight might have been booked in bad taste, but it wasn’t a publicity stunt.  WSOF president Ray Sefo even gave the brothers a chance to call the fight off at the XFINITY Arena in Everett, Washington on Saturday night, seeing how the conflict was all but consuming Ben beforehand. “Right after that interview came, Ray came into my locker room and said, look man, I know you’re emotional about this, if you need to bail on this thing, I don’t care,” Ben says. “He said, ‘it’s going to cost me a lot of money, but I will make sure you don’t lose money, and I can’t pay you all your money, but I can get you some money and make sure we’re good, and we can get you another fight at another time.’ “He told me he was going to fight his brother in a kickboxing tournament they were both entered in. And he almost had to fight his brother, and he was resolved that if he had to fight his brother he was going to walk out there …

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