If the funky red and black Mohawk hasn’t done it already, a crippling counter-left hook at UFC 95 last Saturday night may have just opened the door to Dan ‘The Outlaw’ Hardy becoming a recognised household name in the British Isles.
Eye-catching, exciting, interesting and overtly patriotic – fighter, not hairstyle – Hardy may well have just arrived as one of Britain’s premier mixed martial arts talents.
A good talker with the look and the hook to capture the imagination of the public, Hardy is on the fast-track to provide the yin to Michael Bisping’s yang as the UK continues to grow as a major MMA force.
It’s more than just Hardy’s hair that grabs attention now, too.
“I’ve just come out of a local shop and the old lady in there had the newspaper ready and laid out with my face on it,” says Hardy, a new star of Nottingham.
“The days since the fight have just been mad with attention from fans, media and other admin stuff. I’ve just been really busy with everything. It’s good, though.”
Funnily enough, Hardy’s extensive three-month training camp, three-minute ring walk and week-long post-fight media engagements all amount to significantly more time than he spent inside the Octagon on Saturday night at The O2.
Matched aggressively with hard-hitting American Rory Markham, Hardy required only 69 seconds to skip around the ring, bloody his opponent’s nose with a jab and then switch off his lights with a counter left hook.
“I’ve watched it a few times now,” admits Hardy. “I’ve actually been watching the walk-outs more than the fight, though. Just walking out to that crowd was awesome.
“To be honest, my sleep’s all over the place at the moment. I probably got about one hour’s sleep on Saturday night and then last night I didn’t get to bed until four o’clock. My adrenaline is through the roof right now. I just can’t relax and clear my head.”
As Hardy climbs down from cloud nine, he’ll be continually hoisted back up there via compliments and the acclaim he’s received for his first-round demolition. Even a Hollywood screenwriter as talented as Charlie Kaufman couldn’t have scripted Hardy to win in any more of a poetic manner.
“It was pretty much spot on,” admits ‘The Outlaw’. “The only way it could of gone any better would be if I had thrown the left hook with my eyes closed. Apart from that, it was perfect.
“I knew I’d be able to land pretty comfortably on him, because I had a longer reach and was faster, but I never expected to stop him so quickly. I thought it would take me a while to land that kind of shot because he’s usually very aggressive in the first round.
“As soon as I landed the jab that busted his nose I knew he’d be coming at me fast. He saw red mist and I kind of waited for him. I knew he’d come forward and walk on to something.”
Perhaps most comforting for Hardy is the timing of his finish – and, indeed, the manner of the finish – in relation to comments Markham made in the run-up to the fight. In a stroke of misfortune akin to the dubbing of the Titanic as the world’s safest ship before it crashed into an iceberg, Markham believed his chin would be safe from harm on account of Hardy’s, erm, lack of punch power.
“The finish tied in quite nicely with the fact he’d been saying I had no punching power,” says Hardy. “There were a lot of things said between myself and Rory – and none of it was ever personal – but you have to be careful what you say before a fight. We all say things to hype the fight up and get people interested in it, but Rory kept banging on about me having no punching power and I was keen to prove him wrong.
“It’s always nice to get a fast knockout because it makes people sit up and take notice of you. It’s even better to get a quick knockout over someone like Rory Markham, who is known to be tough and known to be dangerous. For him to be on the receiving end of a knockout like that will have been shocking to most people.”
Often considered more of a danger with his feet than his hands, Hardy admits his left hook has always been a consistent moneymaker during his 21-6, 1 NC mixed martial arts career.
“My left hand has always been pretty powerful, to be honest,” he says. “I’ve dropped quite a few people with jabs and left hooks over the years. My left hook became quite a predominant weapon during my first two fights in Japan and (Akihiro) Gono actually commented on it before our fight last October. I’m aware that I can generate quite a bit of power in my left hook, and so is Rory Markham now.”
Against the aforementioned Gono last October, Hardy had to fix together a 30-piece puzzle with only 29 available pieces. He walked away with a split-decision verdict, but wasn’t about to shout from any rooftops about it. Gono, the master spoiler, taunted and teased Hardy into three frustrating rounds of harrying, missing and just hustling enough to snatch the ‘W’.
The flipside of that uncomfortable coin was Saturday night. Whereas Gono was as elusive as water in the desert, Markham was happy to get wet.
“I only landed two punches cleanly,” Hardy recalls. “The second one was obviously the left hook, and the first one was a jab that busted his nose. He really stepped on to the jab and as soon as it landed I knew I’d found my range and that he’d be walking on to shots all night. I basically realised very quickly that whatever I threw he’d be right there on the end of.”
The end result amounted to Hardy’s first stoppage win in the UFC and also the most gratifying night of his four-and-a-half-year pro career.
“It’s just such a buzz winning by knockout,” he says. “Instead of waiting for the decision verdict, you get that adrenaline rush instantly. There are so many emotions rushing through your body.
“Without a doubt it’s my most satisfying win. To walk out to a crowd like that in a co-main event in London was a dream come true in itself. To then finish the fight with such a clean knockout was just awesome. I wish I could bottle up that feeling on Saturday night and feel it every day.”
Hardy will have to now wait a little while to sip from the same bottle of jubilation. He is leaving for Los Angeles to spend nearly three months stateside working on his jiu-jitsu skills. He may need them should a mooted fight with Marcus ‘The Irish Hand Grenade’ Davis ever come to fruition. All the talk post-fight was that Hardy and Davis could meet in the not too distant future.
“I’ve got nothing against Marcus Davis whatsoever,” says Hardy. “He’s a nice guy and we’ve chatted together quite a lot. His name was kind of thrown at me, rather than me bringing it up.
“I don’t know whether that’s a fight the fans are talking about or if it’s something the UFC are contemplating, but I’m here to do a job and to win fights. If Marcus is going to be the next guy, then so be it. If not, and they’ve got someone else in mind for me, than it really doesn’t matter.”
Ultimately, Hardy is just happy to represent England inside the Octagon. Always prepared to name check his nation of birth, Hardy was as proud as any fellow Brit inside The O2 last Saturday night.
“It was a good opportunity for all us Brits to prove that we can get the job done in style,” beams Hardy. “A lot of the fights would have been shown in America, too, so they’ll be able to see that we’re for real.
“I was really proud of the other two British guys on the card. Terry (Etim) and Paul (Kelly) did a great job and we were all really happy for one another at the end of the night. We felt like a British team on Saturday and it was a really nice vibe.”
If we learned anything about Dan Hardy on Saturday night, it’s the following: he loves his country, he can take you out with one left hook and old ladies in Nottingham adore him. All achieved in 69 seconds. Not bad, eh?
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