by Dan Hardy
• • •
Looking across the Octagon at GSP, I knew I could win. But I was also strangely and soberingly realistic about how that would play out. On the basis I had no intention of even trying to submit him and I never fought to win a decision, my means of victory would have to be a knockout blow, most likely my counter left hook. If I did manage to land that punch and put him to sleep, I’d be treated like Matt Serra. I’d be forever told that it was nothing more than a lucky punch and that he’d destroy me in a rematch. Said rematch would soon arrive and, as per the accepted script, he would then defeat me and reclain his title. In the end, the fight went as it was meant to.
Within a round, I knew this was a different beast to anything I had ever faced before. I'd had loads of conversations with myself, saying that people lose to GSP because they are frightened to let their punches go, that they merely stand meekly by and wait to be taken down. I wasn’t going to do that, I swore. If I was going down, I was going down with all guns blazing. But when you are in there with him, it is incredible how powerless you feel as an offensive force. The way he puts his wrestling together is so slick and tight that it makes you tentative about trying anything. You soon realise that you might get one shot away at best and then he is shooting in on your legs. Combinations are basically impossible. It is certainly not a fun fight for a guy who is predominantly a striker to find himself embroiled in. His ability to take a fighter down was unrivalled, incredible when you think he was never a wrestler in high school. He covered distance so quickly, and was explosive enough to switch his attack and power through an opponent, slamming them to the canvas. His balance and posture was always so on point that creating space to scramble was almost impossible and, because he didn’t open up to strike a great deal, it wasn’t until he would commit to a submission attack that I would find a space to get out.
But at the end of each round I found myself still alive and I sat on my stool and thought, we’re back on our feet now, I always have that puncher’s chance. Then, invariably less than thirty seconds later, I was on my back expending all the energy and strength I had just to keep him off me. The cold hard fact is, I didn’t land a meaningful punch in the entire twenty-five minutes we were in the Octagon. He just shut me down, nullified me. He totally took the fight away from me. I didn’t even feel like I was in a fight to be honest. All I felt was frustrated and bored as I spent the entire bout on the floor defending. He was in total control of practically every second of every round, but he progressed his positions so slowly. I’d make such a huge effort to get to my feet, but halfway there he’d change his tack and bring me down again. I remember thinking that this must be what it feels like to be slowly drowning. To keep breaking the surface to steal half a breath before sinking back into the murky depths. There was barely a mark on my face at the end. Sometimes I think I’d rather just have been beaten up by him like Koscheck and Fitch and Alves were. I think he landed one clean elbow on me, but even when he had the opportunity to strike me he didn’t. It is an incredible level of discipline to have, but he simply never opened up, never risked allowing any space for me to operate whatsoever. GSP had that frightening level of single-mindedness that all legendary champions in sport are blessed with. He formulated a strategy to win and stuck to it with almost religious fervour. I always wanted to win as well, of course, but it was also about the act of fighting to me. To Georges, it seemed like it was all about winning and nothing else. As much as I can respect that mind-set, I’m made of different stuff and will always roll the dice and take a chance to clinch the victory before the final bell.
There are two moments in the fight that everyone likes to talk about, the only two moments in which I was in real and immediate danger. The first is the arm bar that GSP locked on in the final minute of the opening round, and the second is the kimura he manufactured in the fourth. I let both submissions get much deeper than I would have preferred, and I’m not going to pretend that my shoulder in particular didn’t ache for a few days, but at no point did I consider tapping out. I’d worked a lot with Serra, who knows the intricacies of GSP’s game in a real-life scenario and had the knowledge from years of Brazilian jiu-jitsu on exactly how to escape these situations. That involved many hours practising arm triangle, arm bar and back defences on the mats of his Long Island gym. I am also blessed with highly flexible shoulders and contrastingly inflexible elbows, which helps when you have a guy trying to twist your arm out of its socket. During the arm bar I was able to keep it moving, even if just millimetres, while he tried to keep it still and crank it to hyperextend my elbow. It looked pretty gruesome, but I was always able to rotate it a degree or two which was enough to ease the tension and keep it just short of unbearable. The kimura was much more uncomfortable but, despite hearing my friend Joe Rogan scream, ‘He’s going to rip his arm off here!’ submitting didn’t enter my mind. I think I probably would have let him wrench my shoulder from its socket or snap my arm in two before tapping. Straight after the fight, Georges came over to me in the Octagon, prodded at my arm, squeezed it gently, then asked whether it was made of rubber. ‘No,’ I replied with a smile on my face. ‘I’m just very stubborn.’ There was no way I was ever going to give all those who said I would submit the pleasure of watching me tap out.
I was naturally disappointed to lose, but the feedback I received picked me up pretty quickly. I guess people saw my level of commitment to MMA and respected my determination as an underdog. They saw that I always give everything and never take the easy option out of a situation. That I would never quit. If anything, my stock grew in defeat and I gained a whole army of new fans. I always say that, for where I was in my life and career, the fight went as well as it could have gone.
Maybe I should have gone straight home to the UK after the fight, but I wasn’t ready for that. I just wasn’t ready to face the fact that my grandad was gone. I still hadn’t begun that process. It had hit me that he died and it was incredibly upsetting, but I didn’t have the chance for a prolonged period of mourning and reflection to truly process his death and the impact it would have on me. So instead my fiancée and I set off on a four-week road trip down the east coast of America to Florida, smoking a lot of weed and generally blowing off some steam along the way. I felt like I needed a break from MMA for the first time in a decade and that the saccharine environs in which Mickey and Minnie rule would provide that. On the way we stopped off in Charlotte, North Carolina, for a UFC event featuring a couple of my friends. It was nice to see both Ross Pearson and my Rough House teammate Andre Winner take unanimous decision victories over Dennis Siver and Rafaello Oliveira respectively. I also had time to get a memorial tattoo for my grandfather from my good friend Matt 'Skinny' Bagwell.
I got recognised a lot on that holiday, much more so than I ever had before. The fight had been shown on the big screens of a major cinema chain and apparently a life-size cardboard cut-out of me took centre stage in the lobby of every one. My large red Mohawk then did the rest in guaranteeing that my image stuck in people’s heads. Once more, absolutely everyone I encountered was kind and complimentary if they had watched my performance. Every single day I was told by at least one individual a variation of, ‘Dude, he was so scared to stand and trade with you. If you just work on your takedown defence and a bit of wrestling, you’ll be the champ no problem.’ Of course I realised that this was a grand over-simplification, but when you hear something every day, and it continued for months after I returned to the UK too, you can’t help but start to believe it a little. I started thinking, Yeah, you’re right, that’s all I need to do, and it’s an easy thing to do, and then I’ll force everyone to trade with me. I’ll improve my takedown defence while I’m knocking out these other bums, fight my way back to another title shot, and this time the result will be different. It was then that my arrogance peaked. And it was then that I ran into Carlos Condit’s gloved left hand.
• • •
I had watched Condit during hi
s time as World Extreme Cagefighting champion, before the UFC swallowed up that particular American promotion, and knew he was a talented fighter, but in my arrogance I didn’t see him as a threat. After surviving twenty-five minutes with GSP, I simply didn’t respect Condit’s ability enough to be concerned about anything. He was a good kickboxer with strong submission skills, but he wouldn’t try to take me down and I didn’t fear his power in a stand-up striking contest. I felt that our skills were in similar ranges, but I was stronger across the board. He always looked untidy to me, was not technically impressive, and I saw lots of holes in his game that I expected to exploit. On top of all that, the fight was scheduled for London and I viewed that as a clear sign the UFC was immediately looking to build me back up and into title contention again as quickly as possible.
So I entered camp over-confident and that soon spilled into complacency. I had beaten everyone until I ran into a legend and I fully expected to beat everyone again and then this time defeat whoever stood before me with the UFC welterweight strap. I still put in a couple of months of great preparation and arrived at fight week fit, sharp, strong, bang on weight and feeling good with my game, but the difference was in the mental preparation; that is where the complacency lay and it is every bit as dangerous as complacency in the physical preparations. We’ve seen it recently in Brazil when Fabricio Werdum basically sambaed to the Octagon, smiling and waving like he was on a Rio Carnival float, before getting sparked out by Stipe Miočić. I believe it was a big issue for Conor McGregor ahead of the first Nate Diaz fight too. The Irishman strutting onto the stage to weigh in rubbing his belly was severely lacking in the intensity we expect from the Notorious one the day before battle. I was in a similar frame of mind to McGregor and Werdum. My stock was so high after GSP and here I was in the British capital getting lauded as the local hero who’s going to bring the title back to the UK for first time. I was enjoying the whole process too much. Condit then failed to catch his flight across the Atlantic and wasn’t there for the pre-fight press conference and so I missed out on the energy or rage boost which that whole charade provides. I felt invincible as I walked to the Octagon in the O2 Arena that night, totally bereft of anxiety. In truth, I was already looking well past the immediate challenge in front of me and towards an anticipated title shot two years and four more victories down the line.
The fight didn’t even go one round. Condit certainly landed more strikes, but mine were much more damaging. Nothing he hit me with got my attention, whereas I saw his eyes open wide every time I connected a fist to his jaw. I had zero fear of or respect for Condit’s power going into the fight, and by the midway point of the opening round absolutely nothing had changed. I was convinced that if we just stood toe to toe and swung, he would be the one out cold on his back. I swung my trusted left hook with all my might. Then another. Then another.
Then I woke up.
I have never understood the knocked-out guy who comes to on the canvas and starts flailing wildly at the referee and onlookers. Nor the guy apparently lost in total confusion, unable to comprehend what the hell is going on. Logically, as a professional fighter, it is not difficult to figure out what must have happened. You will probably not remember what has transpired, but you always have the pieces of the puzzle and it isn’t hard to fit them together. The only time I had been knocked out before Condit was the sucker punch in the ATT gym and, although I didn’t even know where I was, common sense allowed me to make an educated guess that the guy with the gloves standing over me had played a large role in the affair. It was similar that night in London. I opened my eyes and saw the doctor and, behind him, Carlos Condit celebrating. I just sat up and shouted fuck! Later I watched it back and it all became clear. I committed the schoolboy error of throwing the same punch three times in a row. By the third, Condit was waiting and the shorter, tighter arc on his hook, coupled with my momentum pushing my head towards his oncoming fist, ensured he cracked my chin a split second before I would have his, and that was all she wrote.
I felt different as soon as I got up off the canvas. It was as if all the arrogance that had been accumulating over the previous six months as smacked out of me with that one left hand. I immediately realised that I had got away from myself. My thoughts then turned straight away to my family and, in particular, my mum. It must have been very tough on my dad and sister too, but during the action Mum used to hide behind the English flag they brought with them, so being told her boy had just been knocked unconscious would have been a nightmare for her. I apologised to the fans, but I knew they wouldn’t turn against me. So long as you go out on your shield, the support will always be there. It was all massively disappointing, but it was what it was and an hour later I was sitting in the hospital with Steve Papp laughing about it. He was taking the piss out of me, and in typical British self-deprecating manner, I was giving myself as good as I got from Steve. I knew where I had gone wrong and I knew I’d be back.
• • •
It wasn’t long before Joe Silva was on the phone with the news I was to fight as the co-main event on the Tito Ortiz versus Antônio Rogério Nogueira card in Seattle on 26 March 2011. But when he told me who I was to face, for the first time in my life the immediate reaction was less, fucking right, I’m gonna kill him, and more, Oh, shit. Really? My opponent was Anthony ‘Rumble’ Johnson, an absolute mountain of a man and the terroriser of the welterweight division. We were on friendly terms and every time I saw Anthony I would look him up and down and joke about how we could possibly be in the same weight class. A few weeks before the announcement I sat beside him signing autographs at a fan day and he was 235lbs, a full 65lbs over the UFC welterweight limit! He was a monster who knocked out every 170-pounder he faced. And they weren’t your run-of-the-mill knockouts. I had sat cageside to watch him many times in the UFC and when he starched someone I genuinely wondered whether they would get up. And if they did, I knew they would never be the same again. They were just brutal, violent knockouts. And here was me coming off the first knockout loss of my career and getting matched with a killer. For the first time ever there was a small voice of doubt in my head questioning whether the UFC was actually trying to get rid of me rather than steer me towards another title shot.
With the fight taking place in Washington State, I took the opportunity to visit Bruce Lee’s grave in Seattle’s Lakeview Cemetery. It was a pilgrimage I had always wanted to make, but I went at that particular moment of my career in order to correct my perspective on fighting. I had somehow wandered away from a disciplined mind-set in the Condit fight and I wanted to reconnect with my love of martial arts. ‘Your inspiration continues to guide us toward our personal liberation’: these words are inscribed on a marble book on the grave and it is true that Lee had always led me through my journey and relationship with martial arts. I also watched Enter the Dragon several times and re-read all of Lee’s writing during the Johnson camp. Part of the rationale behind looking to Lee for guidance at this time was that he often spoke of being outmatched in size or number and that you have to adapt your offensive for the situation with which you are presented. Although we would step on the scales at the same weight, Anthony Johnson was naturally a bigger human being and I knew that his size and strength were additional obstacles to overcome before the technical aspect of the fight would even come into play. I had been the clear underdog against GSP but it was a fairly matched fight between two similarly-sized athletes. He may have been technically superior to me in a particular range, but I could always attempt to do something to counter the advantages he held. But in facing Johnson, I felt a little like I was fighting natural physical advantages that I couldn’t do much to counter. I could train for twenty years and he would still be much bigger than me, much stronger than me, and would punch much harder than me. Lee spoke and wrote and taught a lot about finding a way to win when outgunned and I knew I would benefit from some of his spirit. I looked to his adaption philosophies and his famous words of wisdom
on water had a particular resonance:
Empty your mind. Be formless, shapeless. Like water. You put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle. You put water into a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow, or it can crash. Be water, my friend.
It was a very emotional experience to visit my hero’s last resting place, much more so than I had anticipated. Although I had always recognised Bruce Lee as a pivotal character in my fighting story, I guess I hadn’t completely appreciated his impact until I sat there looking at his headstone. I suddenly realised how much I had to thank him for and it was pretty overwhelming. While I was wiping away the tears, Taki Kimura approached and was kind enough to stand chatting with me for almost an hour. Taki was Bruce Lee’s best friend, his best man at his wedding and a pallbearer at his funeral, and someone that spent most days training with and learning from Lee. He visits the grave every other day just to tidy the place up and talk to whoever has come to pay their respects. Hearing all the stories about training with Lee, what he was like as a man, and what it was like to be around this phenomenon in the sixties and early seventies was just an unreal experience. I left Lakeview Cemetery that day fully recharged with a renewed focus on my martial arts career.
With Anthony Johnson and I liking and respecting one another there was never going to be much in the way of vitriolic trash-talk, but I did make sure to comment upon and draw as much attention as possible towards his weight cut. I always saw the fact he killed himself to try and make 170lbs as a mental weakness on his part. It was like he needed to be sure he would be the biggest and strongest in the Octagon in order to manufacture self-confidence. It was also no secret that he struggled big time to torture his massive frame down to the welterweight limit. Twice before he’d missed weight, and they became catchweight bouts at 177 and 176lbs, forcing Johnson to forfeit a percentage of his purse to his disadvantaged opponent. When I heard he spent hours of every night during fight week sweating off excess pounds in the sauna, and was allegedly found on the floor of a hotel lift in an exhausted state after one session, I knew there was a genuine chance he could miss 170lbs again. So I did everything in my power to verbally coerce him into punishing his body to make weight. I knew the process would wreck his cardiovascular output and cause him to burn out faster than usual over the course of our scheduled three rounds together on fight night.