Greg Hardys (3-1) ankomst till UFC väckte starka känslor. När han anlände till organisationen så hade han tre raka segrar i bagaget, där han vunnit samtliga matcher på knockout. Det var dock inte det folk pratade om. Den tidigare NFL spelaren stod vid ett tidigare tillfälle anklagad för våld i hemmet, något som många fans inte glömmer.
I sin första (och i skrivande stund enda) UFC match så matchades Hardy mot Allen Crowder på UFC Fight night 143. Det hela slutade olyckligtvis i en diskvalifikation för Hardy, då den forne NFL spelaren knäade sin motståndare när han var nere på mattan. Hardy reflekterade över detta i en intervju med MMAjunkie.
“In a game where it all lies on what you do in that cage, it’s hard to walk out a loser. I’m not one – anybody can check out my history – I’ve dealt with it terribly in the past, and I’ve dealt with it great before, but it’s all the same outcome. I hate losing. I’m not a loser, I’m not a cheater. I said when I first came into this business: I earned everything that I have right now.
“I’ve taken every opportunity. Anybody that wanted to stop me could’ve jumped in my way and knocked me out and took care of business. That’s how I do things.
“It kind of shook me to my core when I came out the ring and everybody’s standpoint was, ‘He’s a cheater’”, It kind of threw me off a bit.”
“That’s the cool thing about me, I advance fast, I worked my whole life to be an athlete, to be physically capable of whatever a coach needs me to be capable of. I adapt very fast. In this couple of months, we’ve trained hard, we’ve focused on the fighter instead of advancing just the individual skills like we always do. You guys could hope to see a calm Greg Hardy, a Greg Hardy that’s here to fight.
“There’s no more searching for a knockout. I’m claiming to be ‘The Prince of War,’”. “We’re going to be here for war. Let’s fight it out. Whatever he wants, wherever he wants to go we’re going to make it pretty, we’re going to entertain.”
Hardys nästa match är på UFC on ESPN 3, då han möter Dmitrii Smoliakov.
