by Dan Hardy
I expected a bit of acclaim from the MMA world for the victory, but the reaction from many fans outside the UK was sadly a little more cynical. This was in a large part down to the view that local fighters were always given the benefit of the doubt on British soil, an opinion many people formed after Bisping was awarded a controversial decision over Matt Hamill in their grudge match at UFC 75 in London. Similar to the reputation Germany has within boxing circles, it was joked that in the UK you needed to knock a Brit out just to secure a draw. I beat Gono fair and square, but it was easy for the ill-informed to dismiss it as just another home decision for an English fighter in England. Even if, just as was the case in Bisping versus Hamill, the one British judge on duty actually scored against the guy with a British passport.
It was a bit of a shame, but a chat with Marshall Zelaznik, who was then running the UFC’s European office, let me know that the people who really understood, and really counted as far as my career was concerned, were suitably impressed. He shook my hand, thanked me for both the performance in the fight and all the effort I had put in to media duties beforehand, and slipped me an envelope with a cheque for more than my total fight purse had amounted to. I was on a sliding pay scale for my first four fights, so long as I kept winning. I was to receive $3,000 for the fight with Gono and another $3,000 for winning it. Then $5,000 plus $5,000, $7,000 plus $7,000, and $9,000 plus $9,000 before the deal was up for renegotiation. It wasn’t life-changing money, particularly when you consider I had to cover all my own training expenses out of that, so any additional bonus cheques made a world of difference. It was at that moment that I realised I truly belonged in the UFC and that I could do very well here by just being myself. I saw that these were people I could work with. Right from the off, there was a feeling that I’d be looked after so long as I performed and deserved it. Excel at your job and reap the benefits: it is an approach to business that suits me down to the ground. I also realised that I was marketable, perhaps more so than the majority of non-Americans in the organisation. A lot of the other Brits that had made it were either naturally quiet characters, or communicated in a way that the US audience struggled to understand, often to the extent that they required subtitles in UFC programming! I sensed the UFC felt I had a little bit more to offer, and having thrown me in at the deep end against Gono and watched me chase the finish against a tough veteran, they knew that I had the potential to be a name in the sport and a useful person to help recruit new fans in Europe.
• • •
The next call I received from Joe Silva informed me I was to face Rory Markham at UFC 95 in London. Markham was exactly the type of opponent I wanted, the antithesis of the sneaky and cautious Gono. He was a big, powerful athlete with good striking skills, wrestling and takedown defence, but his greatest attributes were his size for the weight and his heavy hands. To give an idea of his true size, he weighed in 25lbs over the welterweight limit four days before the weigh-in for our bout, and fought Nick Diaz at a 177lb catchweight in his next outing. He was also durable, although he had never gone the distance. His record was 16–4 and he had a kill-or-be-killed attitude to the Octagon. I hadn’t been shy in calling for an in-your-face brawler, and the UFC duly obliged. They also bumped us up to the co-main event, alongside Diego Sanchez versus Joe Stevenson. MMA lights as bright as Chael Sonnen, Paulo Thiago and Josh Koscheck were supporting. Being just my second UFC bout, this was another huge confidence-builder for me to know the organisation had such faith in my ability and marketability.
I had watched Markham fight Brodie Farber from cageside in Vegas the previous July and after ninety seconds I wasn’t overly impressed. This guy isn’t as slick as I had imagined, I was thinking, as Farber backed him up and landed clean time and time again. Then Rory suddenly landed a head-kick and turned away before Farber had hit the deck, already certain that he was unconscious. That definitely caught my attention. It shouldn’t have been a surprise really for Markham’s skills were honed in Pat Miletich’s gym. Miletich was himself a former UFC champion and he managed to ingrain that winning mentality into his stable of fighters, eleven of whom became world champions themselves. Among their number sit the likes of Matt Hughes, Jens Pulver, Tim Sylvia and Robbie Lawler, so this was the environment Markham came from. He would be my first match-up with a top-level, well-rounded American fighter who was prepared for every range of MMA.
I knew Rory would be fragile at the weigh-in after his significant fight-week cut and that this was my opportunity to rattle his cage and whip up a bit more interest in our fight. Backstage in the West End theatre in which the weigh-in was taking place, I saw him with his head hanging in a delicate-looking state. Perfect, I thought. He weighed-in first and when it was my turn and he was standing by the side of the stage I stepped onto the scales without taking my eyes off him. I just kept staring and staring, while he looked anywhere else that meant he didn’t have to make eye contact. As soon as I stepped off the scales, I marched right up to him and pushed my forehead against his. Immediately, I felt the alarm shoot through his body like an electric shock. He dug his heels in to prevent me bullying him backwards, but he was definitely struggling. The fans, unanimously behind me of course, loved it and went wild. Every one of them left the theatre knowing that ours would be the war they all hoped to see on Saturday night.
And it was, while it lasted. He stormed out looking to decapitate me. After that severe weight cut, he probably knew he didn’t have three hard rounds in the tank and sought to end it early. I do enjoy a scrap, and I am sometimes the one to go looking for it, but what I really love more than anything is slick counter-punching. Catching someone cleanly as they move in to knock you out is the most beautiful thing you can do in an Octagon or ring as far as I am concerned. That is the point where fighting can meet art. So I moved in and out of range, utilising my superior footwork. I’ve always had good feet in a fight, cultivated from years of taekwondo and thousands of rounds with elite-level boxers combined with a natural spring in my step and heightened plyometric ability. It was easy for me to glide and bounce over the canvas, always a step or two ahead of someone heavy-footed like Markham, frustrating him into an ill-disciplined rage all the while. But when the chance presented itself, I pounced. I caught him flush on the nose and saw his leg stiffen. He was staggered and, as his nose dripped blood and bothered him, he chased towards me recklessly. Studying his fights during camp, I knew he tended to bowl his right hand over the top, putting all his weight onto his leading leg and committing his entire body to the strike. He did this because he was so confident in his own wrestling ability that he had little fear of his opponent countering by shooting for his legs and taking him down. So I decided to counter in a different way and threw my own right hand as he launched his. We both missed, but I had kept my balance and was set to follow up with my trademark left hook on his unguarded temple. It landed clean and he dropped like a dead, lead weight. He was effectively unconscious, but his head made an involuntary jump to get up so I was required to hit him again on the deck. At that precise moment, in the milliseconds it takes between thought and action, I remembered some words Ricardo Liborio once spoke to me when I was in camp with American Top Team. ‘Take a breath,’ he told me. ‘When you’ve caught someone and hurt them, don’t just go charging in for the kill wildly. Take a breath, focus on the exact point on his body you want to strike, and then finish it cleanly with one decisive blow.’ I looked down at Markham, focused on his chin, and detonated a right hand on it as the referee began his swoop to save the American fighter from serious damage. Five minutes later, he was still confused as to where he was and what had happened. The roar from the English crowd was special. I beat my chest and then ran across the Octagon and scaled the side of the cage the better to take it all in. Almost 15,000 people were there to watch me fight. I looked across to the other side and found my family brandishing a Cross of St George flag with Dan ‘The Outlaw’ Hardy on it and generally going crazy with joy. I love it
that the cameras picked them up too and that footage appears regularly in any promo or highlight reel of my career.
• • •
I was flying now and couldn’t wait for my next fight. Life in the UFC was proving to be everything I had hoped for. After the years of grinding in the bush leagues, it was like I was now operating in a totally different dimension. I’d been trundling along in a second-hand Ford Escort and was suddenly upgraded to a top-of-the-range Mercedes Benz. The UFC is a polished machine and it is all the little touches that make it such a unique and special experience for a fighter on their roster. Backstage pre-fight there is a level of comfort and professionalism unheard of in the British domestic MMA scene. Officials are everywhere keeping an eye on things, where before I had been used to seeing guys doing a line of cocaine off the dressing room table before striding to the cage. The principal characters like Joe Rogan, Dana White, Burt Watson, Bruce Buffer and Stitch Duran then add a sprinkle of stardust over proceedings.
I’d got to know Joe while training alongside him at the 10th Planet in California, but it was still slightly surreal to have him put his hand on my shoulder and conduct the post-fight interviews. Whenever I visualised my career in the UFC as I was coming through the ranks in Europe, Joe’s distinctive voice was always the narrator. Like Rogan, Dana has become synonymous with the UFC during his long reign as president and figurehead of the organisation. I used to love the talks he gave after we had successfully weighed in, where he’d call just the fighters alone together into a room and sit us down for a five- or ten-minute motivational speech. The theme or focus of his words varied, but Dana knows how to talk to fighters. Whatever he said, he knew how to put it in a way that made you determined to deliver. Sometimes he’d say that a lot of people are talking shit about this card and it is up to us to go out there and prove them wrong. He reminded us of our responsibility to represent the sport well, give the fans what they want, and show how good we are at mixed martial arts. But Dana also understands what we all put into our professions and the sacrifices we make. He knows it is a hard and lonely road at times, so one of his specialities is fostering a team environment within the most individualistic of sports. MMA was still really in its infancy as a mainstream sport and was accustomed to being attacked from all sides almost every day, so it was nice to feel like a unit at times, like we are all in this together. It was nice to lean on each other and feed off each other for ten minutes the day before war. I’d never played team sports to any great standard so I missed that spirit. I often imagined it was like Brian Clough talking to the Nottingham Forest team before the European Cup final. It reminded me of Billy Bob Thornton and his ‘being perfect’ speech in Friday Night Lights (often one of my fight-day movies) too. Dana would finish by telling us the hard work was all done, that we were to go and drink and eat and rest and be ready tomorrow. That was what every one of us was there for so his words fed into the feel-good vibe we all have at the conclusion of the cutting process, the biggest drag of most fighters’ preparations. Everyone walks out of that talk with Dana with a lot of positive energy, a lot of fist bumps and mutual good lucks.
I guess I just felt very well looked-after as a fighter after years of dealing with dodgy operators and low-budget promotions such as Xtreme Brawl, Fight Club, UK Storm and Fight Fest. One of Dana’s other concluding remarks was always to check that we had our contact lists and knew who to call with any issues. The most important number on that list was always that of Burt Watson. He was the glue that held everything together behind the scenes. Burt, a guy in his sixties with a lifetime in professional boxing behind him and more soul and swagger than James Brown, was basically an event manager. He loved everyone, and everyone loved him back. He had a couple of famous catchphrases that made all the fighters smile. ‘If it’s in here or here’ – pointing to your head and your heart – ‘then I want it in here’ – now pointing to his own ear. ‘If you’re sick, or worried or whatever,’ he’d continue, ‘you have my number and I’ll answer at any time of any day you call.’ Burt kept an eye on all of us and made life as easy as he possibly could. His second catchphrase was the trigger to fight. ‘We’re rolling!’ his roar echoed down the corridor ahead of him as he proceeded towards your dressing room when it was time to walk to the Octagon. Nothing could get me buzzing like the sound of those words from Burt. I have goosepimples now just thinking about it.
It was also nice to have a guy like Stitch Duran, perhaps the most famous cutman in the world, wrap my hands and no one ever did it as well as Stitch. Then it was into the famed and trademarked Octagon, where the one-and-only Bruce Buffer stood ready to announce me to the crowd in his own unique and exhilarating fashion. I developed a special relationship with Bruce, who has been introducing fighters since he first appeared at UFC 10. Every budding MMA fighter dreams of the day that Bruce announces them and I was no different, even commencing my visualisation training with his distinct voice roaring out my name. When I stood in my corner of the Octagon for the first time and Bruce turned to face me, my adrenalin began pumping even faster. As the words came out of his mouth I mimed along, getting more and more fired up. It became a tradition that the fans would expect before my fights and would energise them just as much. Bruce would even come up to me before the event started, offering a fist bump and saying, ‘Let’s give them a show tonight.’ I would adapt it slightly depending on the location of the fight, stamping my foot on the canvas when I was on home soil, or growling at the camera with a mouth-guard that read ‘England’ across it in big letters. It was a little bit of extra theatre that I absolutely adored.
Noticing how these strong personalities had carved out their niches one way or another, it soon became clear that, as a fighter, the onus was very much on me to do the same. Very few UFC competitors will reach superstar status on raw talent inside the Octagon alone. We are in the entertainment business, albeit a particularly real, bloody and violent strand of it, and so how you carry yourself in front of the cameras or microphones when the gloves are off can be just as important as when you are kicking someone in the head or choking the consciousness out of them on the canvas. The marketing minds have an expectation that you create and work on a particular image of yourself that you wish to project and, as I enjoy the theatrical aspect to the UFC, I was only too happy to fully embrace that side of the game.
There was nothing contrived about my Outlaw persona, it was effectively just Dan Hardy with the volume turned up a few notches. As a teen, you’ll remember, I was sporting long hair, black nail varnish, coloured contact lenses and fronting a Rage Against the Machine cover band, so it was in my nature to put on somewhat of a show. The bandana came first, an obvious accessory for any self-respecting outlaw, and when I had my cousin Chloe stitch a red-and-black one together for the second Izidro fight, they became my colours. The Mohawk then appeared and got dyed red so everything was co-ordinated. I never thought of any of it as a deliberate marketing gimmick, but when someone once said to me, ‘Hey, you’re the guy with the red hair,’ it hit home how these details can contribute to a fighter first becoming a recognisable face and maybe even a household name. I remember thinking it would be amazing to look out into the crowd and see thousands of my fans wearing bandanas and the odd red-and-black Mohawk from the hard-core followers. Then I started wearing different contact lenses, sometimes coloured, sometimes animal eyes, to weigh-ins just to mess with my opponent. The eyes being the window to the soul is a rather tired cliché, but I knew I wanted to look deep into my enemy’s pupils and so I guessed he wanted to do just the same to me. If a pair of wolf eyes prevented him doing this and in any way frustrated him, then it was all worth it. Often I’d wear a pair of sunglasses and only reveal the contacts when we were head to head, to maximise any shock value. By the time I was in the UFC, I’d added fang-like gumshields so it was more obvious when I was smiling during the fight, which was often. The fans loved the whole performance and I fed off the buzz all these little details create
d. I thrived on the energy, good or bad, that I produced. It was all fuel for me. They were all little moves in the larger psychological warfare that takes place before every big fight, a battle that begins the moment the contract is signed.
Trash-talking is probably the single most important element of any psychological warfare campaign, and so that too increasingly became a huge part of my image. I had dabbled in it earlier in my career against the likes of Berik and Thorpe, but most of the time before I signed with the UFC I had no contact with my opposition until the weigh-in, which made it difficult to mount any preliminary offensive. Then with Gono there was a language barrier, and Markham was basically invisible until fight week, so it wasn’t until my third UFC fight against Marcus Davis that I really went to town and got a reputation for it. Again, it all came very naturally to me. I come from a culture in which pseudo-bullying between genuine friends is the norm. I’d grown up watching my dad mercilessly rip the piss out of his teammates and work colleagues, and the MMA gym environment, especially within Team Rough House, took it to another level altogether. Rough House was extreme and borderline nasty at times. Jokes like ‘Your new baby looks a lot like me’ would get taken to the limit, sometimes even the wives and girlfriends playing along. Guys were savaged for the slightest slip-up and the abuse would continue for weeks. That was our way of engendering a team spirit and forging bonds and it worked – we were soon more like brothers than mere teammates. But it is a totally different atmosphere within the big US MMA teams. I remember when I was first there and a fighter came up to me after training and said, ‘Dude, you were awesome today’, or ‘That was amazing when you did this move’, I turned on them like, ‘Are you fucking with me?’ From my first day of taekwondo with Mick, throughout every martial arts session I ever had in the UK, nobody had ever spoken to me like that, trainer or peer. I couldn’t believe this was genuine praise and so presumed it was passive-aggressive sarcasm against the new guy. Of course it was the opposite. They really were totally innocent and bona fide compliments. It took me a long while to get used to that positive-attitude dynamic that dominates US gyms and even when I did, I still tried to introduce the barbed British banter at every opportunity. I occasionally got a taste of my own medicine, but it was always pretty tame compared to a session with the Rough House boys.