We can’t pretend Hardy’s past doesn’t exist
Under different circumstances, we might be talking today about the hottest new heavyweight sensation to hit mixed martial arts in quite some time.
Make no mistake about it: Greg Hardy could end up being very, very good at this sport. He hits really hard, as his 45second annihilation of Juan Adams on Saturday night at UFC on ESPN 4 attests. All eight of his pro and amateur victories have been first-round knockouts. And he’s a part of one of the world’s very best gyms at American Top Team.
But then, there’s also this: Five years ago, Hardy was convicted of domestic violence after an incident in Charlotte, North Carolina. The police report, obtained by Deadspin, stated the victim was thrown onto a pile of semiautomatic assault weapons and that Hardy strangled her and told her he should kill her.
Later, after reportedly reaching a settlement with the victim, charges against Hardy were dropped when the victim stopped cooperating. But the stench from the incident was such that the NFL, hardly known as the playground of the pure and virtuous, all but blackballed an all-pro-caliber player in the aftermath.
Have you heard this before? Sure, you have. But UFC on ESPN 4 fight week was the week it became crystal-clear that most of the parties involved are betting this will all go away as Hardy’s fighting career begins to pick up steam, even though he declines to address the issue while demanding his second chance.
We figured out where UFC officials stand on this the moment they made Hardy’s official debut the co-feature bout of the first event of their ESPN deal in January. UFC president Dana White put Hardy on the same card as recent domestic violence victim Rachel Ostovich, then acted as if the people who brought this up were the problem.
The fact Hardy has been fed competition who would lose to Glass Joe in “Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out” also says something. Great, we’ve seen that Hardy can knock out low-level opposition on several occasions. Now how about matching him up with someone who can wrestle?
Hardy also has managed to drag ESPN into the muck with him in this, his third fight on the cable network. Adams chirped nonstop about Hardy’s disturbing past throughout his fight-week media appearances. It was the storyline that most resonated on the entire card.
But the only thing that was hinted at this during the broadcast was a brief Adams mention of “screw-ups” with no context. There was no follow-up on what exactly those “screw-ups” might be. There have been instances when the UFC won’t talk about certain subjects, but wholesale ignoring what fans are most talking about heading into a card is certainly rare.
ESPN has been near-perfect in its presentation of the UFC in this first year of their partnership. The broadcasts are better paced and more professional than those on Fox. The UFC finally feels like a big league now. ESPN has indisputably been a huge upgrade.
But whitewashing Hardy is not a good look.
It’s not hard to understand why some in the media are trying to wish this all away. Hardy’s management team is one of the most powerful in the sport. If MMA writers play along with Hardy’s image rehab and write fawning columns, then somewhere down the road they might be handed a scoop like a well trained poodle accepting a treat.
It’s also easy to look at Hardy’s situation and play Twitter trolls’ favorite game: whataboutism. Yeah, this business sure can be dirty sometimes. I could fill another column just listing all of the other bad things fighters and people within the fight game have done.
Also, most people learn by kindergarten that two wrongs don’t make a right.
So here’s an idea for Hardy, his team and the UFC going forward: If you want to wake up the morning after a fight and hear only talk about his upside in the cage and chatter about how far he can go in the UFC heavyweight division, then stop trying to pretend his past doesn’t exist.
Talk about it. Apologize. Make a generous donation to a women’s charity. Show some sort of sign that he is contrite and is learning from his experience. Then give some time to show he really means it.
Then, and only then, will we focus on the fact Hardy very well might have a bright future in this sport.