On the cop side: Officer X describes himself as a "peace officer." He's scheduled to fight in the tag team Cops vs. Cons mixed martial arts event promoted by Rob Yundt, left, and Jason Hutchings. (MARC LESTER / Anchorage Daily News)

( UPDATE: APD Chief Mark Mew came to the ADN this morning to talk about this story. Read his reaction here.)

Officer X is a wiry, angry guy who showed up to my office Tuesday in a white leotard and a Mexican wrestling mask he wouldn't take off. He said he works as a "peace officer" for the State of Alaska -- maybe in corrections, though he wouldn't specify -- and he was very interested in getting in my face.

Officer X had on his spandex outfit because he is a cage-fighter. He's scheduled for a mixed martial arts fight at the end of the month called the "Cops vs. Cons." The idea of it is that masked, law enforcement officers using fake names brawl with former criminals. And I thought that was a stupid idea. He wanted to convince me otherwise.

A fight like that last month sold a lot of tickets. Stoking blood-lust against law enforcement among people with criminal records is a real moneymaker. Which is why promoters Jason Hutchings and Rob Yundt decided to do it again this month, twice. They have a match on the Kenai Peninsula this weekend and in Anchorage the next.

When they were planning this month's fight, they didn't know that ex-con Kenneth Robinson was going to shoot Anchorage cop Jean Mills during a traffic stop along DeBarr Road early one morning last week. It was the second shooting of a police officer on an Anchorage street this year.

After the shooting, when I came across their "Cops vs, Cons" signs along Fireweed Lane, it seemed all wrong. In a city where police are targets of shootings, why throw an event where criminals are invited to publicly beat down law enforcement officers and where law enforcement officers are invited to act like masked street-fighters?

Before I go on, I'll say this: I don't have anything against mixed martial arts. I've watched a night of fights, and it was perfectly entertaining. But this was an issue of tone-deaf marketing.

Hutchings told me on the phone he sees nothing wrong with it. Every fight has a story, he said. This was a classic one.

"There's always going to be people that hate cops and always going to be people that hate cons," he said.

Tons of fighters have been interested in fighting in the match, he told me, though interest from convicts has outpaced interest from law enforcement about 200 to 1, he said. The "cops" were a trooper, a corrections officer and another officer whose job will remain a mystery, he said.

He hopes the event will attract new people to fighting. Not just people who want to see cops get beat up, he said, but also people who think bad guys don't get enough punishment in the criminal justice system.

Lt. Dave Parker at APD said no one from the department was fighting. He didn't like the idea of it. "We have fought long and hard against the image of the brutal cop, the guy who wants to mix it up and fight with everybody," he said.

Col. Audie Holloway, the head of the Alaska State Troopers, saw the signs and was not pleased either. He has nothing against mixed martial arts as a sport, but "when it comes to promoting the fighting to make money and using law enforcement as a tool, I'm against it," he said.

If a trooper was fighting, he didn't know about it, he said.

The Department of Corrections wasn't excited about its employees participating either. "That goes against who we are in terms of how our staff should present ourselves professionally," said department spokesman Richard Schmitz.

Because Officer X wouldn't give his name, I don't know if he works in state prisons.

I blogged about the whole thing Monday night. And by Tuesday afternoon the comments were piling up and a keyed-up masked cage-fighter and two promoters arrived at my door.

"You're much prettier in person," was the first thing Officer X breathed at me, creepily, through the slit in his mask.

Hutchings and Yundt were trying to stay cool. They suspected I was in league with another fight promoter trying to mess with their business. Or maybe I was just conservative, like someone who doesn't like rock and roll because of religion.

It wasn't just me, I told them. Police, corrections officers and the troopers don't like their fight either, I said. The top brass are just telling me that, they countered. Tons of tickets had been sold to police officers and troopers, too, they said.

"How do you know what police think?" Officer X asked. "Did you take a poll?"

They're making money off anti-law enforcement sentiment. Isn't that kind of tacky right after a cop shooting?

Yundt started telling me about how he isn't in it for the money. It's for all the kids out there with dreams of fighting. He's trying to build the sport in Alaska, he said. It's people like me, he said, who don't understand the athleticism, who are giving it a bad reputation.

I asked them to leave. We weren't getting anywhere. Maybe they were in it for the athletics, but they were also into the spectacle and the cash. And this time, the spectacle was violence between criminals and cops, and Anchorage doesn't need that right now. And nobody was going to convince me otherwise. Especially not a guy who won't take off his spandex mask.