LaRosa, Duke, Vasquez accuse Atchley of regrettable behavior, manager denies

As Invicta FC approaches its sixth event, a trio of female MMA fighters have come forward to accuse a prominent manager of inappropriate behavior, and the manager has stepped to his defense.

Invicta FC President Shannon Knapp on Monday posted a Facebook message warning fighters about a manager making false claims and advised them to speak out about mistreatment.

Knapp previously has issued posts warning of a shady manager, but hasn’t named the individual. She did not respond to request for comment.

But shortly after the most recent message, and others posted on a popular women’s MMA Facebook page, veteran fighter Tara LaRosa identified Brett Atchley as the manager. She said he had “accosted” her before and after an Invicta event this past October.

Atchley emphatically denied LaRosa’s claim, and others of impropriety made by fighters Jessamyn Duke and Alyssa Vasquez, who spoke to MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) after the controversy broke out.

Duke said she left Atchley because he frequently got drunk at events, at one point shoving her mother during a confrontation, failed to account for sponsor money and advised her not to tryout for the first co-ed season of “The Ultimate Fighter.” Vasquez said she cut off contact with the manager when he made inappropriate sexual advances.

The manager countered that he never touched Duke’s mother and only drank socially after events. He said an encounter with Vasquez was mutual.

“I always drank after the fight, but everybody else did,” said Atchley, who admitted he had “one or two” DUIs as the result of his alcohol use. “It’s something that I’ve got to watch, and I’ve got to keep an eye on, because it does tend to get out of control. But I’ve never been inappropriate with anybody.”

Widely considered the top women’s MMA promotion in the world, Invicta FC has 49 professional fighters under contract and has attracted hundreds of thousands of viewers to its events via online pay-per-view. Knapp recently traveled to New York for a meeting with Showtime, which later signaled its potential interest in broadcasting events. With the UFC now promoting women’s MMA, the upstart promotion is the only other major platform for women.

Neither LaRosa or Duke are currently under contract with Invicta, and Vasquez fights as an amateur. In an interview Monday with MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com), LaRosa said other fighters were afraid to speak out about Atchley.

“He became abusive, and nobody wants to say anything because they’re afraid that it’s going to get worse, or he’s going to make good on threats,” she said.

Atchley believes the women have banded together to smear his name after a rumor of sexual misconduct involving a former client was spread earlier this year. He detailed a rumor of sexual assault that surfaced after he stopped working with straw weight Paige VanZant, who once fought for Invicta. He emphatically denied the rumor, saying he never touched her inappropriately and had witnesses to prove it (VanZant and her management repeatedly denied requests for comment).

Atchley added that the current accusations stemmed from a falling out with Invicta consultant Sam Wilson, who posted a message similar to Knapp’s on a women’s MMA forum. (Wilson said she has ceased communication with Atchley as allegations have surfaced.)

The manager said the catalyst for Knapp’s message were text messages he sent to UFC vet Ivan Salaverry, with whom he shares a long-running feud. The text messages, which LaRosa forwarded to MMAjunkie.com, were sent in July and August and end with “any girl that trains in your gym will NEVER be on a Strikeforce or Invicta card…I’ve already black balled them…now what bitch?”

“The text message that came back had been altered,” said Atchley. “The text message I sent to the person was that, ‘You don’t know anything about managing women. You’ll never get them anywhere.’”

“Tara needs to retract what she said,” he added. “It’s never going to happen, but I’ll make it happen one way or the other. If I have to get legal recourse, then so be it.”

Differing interpretations

LaRosa said her troubles with Atchley escalated when he grabbed her wrist at the weigh-ins for the October event, Invicta FC 3, and teased her about a lack of sponsor patches on her clothing.

“He moved to me and grabbed ahold of my wrist and my sweatshirt and said, ‘Where’s your sponsors? I thought you were supposed to be big s–t. I guess your manager’s not very good, huh?’” said LaRosa, who is currently managed by longtime rep Monte Cox. “I was really down on weight, and I hesitated to beat the holy s–t out of him for touching me.”

Ivan Salaverry, a UFC vet who then trained LaRosa, concurred with her recollection, saying “He didn’t do anything illegal, but I think he was out of his place, for sure.” Atchley, though, said he and the fighter had taken shots at him online after they had met at event over a year ago, and he avoided her.

“I was never within 10 feet of her at any one given time, except when I walked past her at the weigh-ins. She shouted out to me and said, ‘Hey, how you doing?’ I said, ‘I’m doing fine,’ and I walked on by.”

LaRosa and Atchley agree that another heated confrontation at the airport arose over Atchley’s request to help her with her luggage.

LaRosa said she isn’t interested in legal action against the manager.

“I’d rather tear someone down behind the scenes,” she said.

Duke, who’s one-year deal with Atchley expired in January, reached a boiling point with the rep when he appeared to lag in his support for her appeal of a KO loss to Miriam Nakamoto at Invicta FC 5, saying he was more interested in promoting transgender client Fallon Fox.

When she signaled her interest to audition for “The Ultimate Fighter 18,” she said he told him, “It’s like signing your soul to the devil,” and showed him a copy of UFC fighter Alexis Davis‘ contract, who had recently left Atchley.

“He’s not allowed to do that,” Duke said. “It was a huge breach of trust.”

Atchley said he was trying provide sound advice to his client when he showed her the deal.

“I showed it to her yes,” he said. “I told her that I suggest to think long and hard before signing exclusively with the UFC. Now if I was a money grubbing, dishonest manager I would so anything I could to get her to sign.”

Duke added that Atchley had never seen anything in writing about money related to her sponsorship deals. She said she learned that Atchley had made claims that she was making as much as $10,000 for a watch sponsor, when she was in fact making nothing.

“I don’t know where she got the $10,000 number,” Achtley responded. “It was never said. I have never cheated anyone out of any sponsorship. I keep straight records and accounting.”

When she sent him a letter informing him that she would not renew a management contract, she said he became irate.

“He wrote some really ugly text messages and emails and threatened to slander my name,” Duke said. “He said he has volumes of emails and information on me that’s incriminating, and if he needs to make an example of me, he will.”

Over the weekend, Duke reached out to Sam Wilson to request that Atchley remove her image from his management website. She said she immediately received an email from him telling her to “cease and desist” in communicating with the consultant and threatening a lawsuit.

Atchley didn’t immediately respond to follow-up emails requesting comment on Duke’s claims.

Missed signals

Vasquez, who previously spoke to MMAjunkie.com about her experience fighting Fox, said she cut off Atchley shortly after the transgendered fighter’s story went public. She “liked” a post he wrote on Facebook, and after exchanging numbers, they began speaking on the phone.

After four years on the amateur circuit, Vasquez said she wanted to take her career to the next level and thought Atchley could potentially help her. She said Atchley struck her as a power-broker in women’s MMA and was “intimidating” from the get-go.

“He was kind of throwing around how much power he had in the industry, and while he himself would never blackball somebody, there are people around him that would probably do that for his benefit,” she said.

They met in person this past April at Invicta FC 5. Atchley asked her to have a beer with him at the show’s intermission, and they began chatting. Vasquez said she was aware that he was interested in her personally, but believed he could still help her if she got her career together. At the end of intermission, they went to hug, and he kissed her on the neck, and then on the mouth.

“In no way did I push him off or say, ‘How dare you!’” Vasquez said. “I was just kind of frozen. I went with it, wrapped it up, and went back to my seat. But at that point, I knew I didn’t want to go to the afterparty. I knew that he wanted more, and I definitely didn’t.”

Atchley later texted her to apologize, to which she said she wrote, “You didn’t do anything wrong. That’s just not what I’m looking for.”

Later, she said Atchley called her to talk about the VanZant rumors that were swirling, and again apologized for kissing her. After getting off the phone, she said he sent her a Facebook message: “I love you.”

After he allegedly sent the message again, she responded.

“I wrote, ‘Oh you’re going to regret writing that one in the morning,’” Vasquez said. “And then after that, [the message] said, ‘Why don’t we just f–k.’ That was pretty much the end of me wanting anything to do with him.”

When asked to comment on his relationship with Vasquez, Atchley was taken aback by her claim he acted inappropriately. He said the kiss was mutual, and that at one point she was supposed to fly to Florida to spend a week with him.

“That one really catches me off-gaurd,” he said. “I didn’t expect that.”

He did not respond to a follow-up email requesting comment on Vasquez’s recollection of their Facebook conversation.

The fallout

Of 17 or 18 clients, Atchley said the rumors had prompted four of his clients to leave. But he said others would vouch for his professionalism in the business.

Atchley said after every warning Knapp sent, he reached out to her to ask if he was the manager in question. With the most recent message, he called her in person, and he said she assured him “if you’re not doing anything wrong, then you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

As the accusations fly freely, Atchley believes there are other managers abusing their power. Whether he’s the sole one to take the fall remains to be seen.

“The women’s MMA community is so small, it will affect me,” he said. “Will I ever recover from it? I don’t know. It depends on how hard I want to fight to clear my name. Because I haven’t done anything wrong. I’m not an angel, dude. I’ve got a hot head, but I don’t bully women. That’s not why I got into it.

“It seems to me when these girls get to a level where they make more money than they’ve ever made in their lives, then the God-almighty dollar starts to come into play, and they think, ‘I’m going to go to a bigger manager now.’ Fine, let me know how that works for you.

“It’s really easy for women to play the victim, especially when they make their mind up that they’re going to do it. Because everyone will believe them. If I come out and say it’s untrue, who’s going to believe me? Nobody is going to believe me until I follow through and make them name names and provide me with facts.”

(Pictured: Tara LaRosa)