Heather Hardy Following in Holly Holm’s Footsteps
Heather Hardy needs no clock. Time ticks in her head, measured by the training she does, the clients she has at the fabled Gleason’s Gym in Brooklyn, New York, the late-afternoon pickups when she has to get her daughter Annie and the very second she sits down and quickly falls asleep to begin the process the next day.
She is 35, the single mother of a teenaged daughter who does all of the things a parent on a fixed budget is supposed to do, like laundry and cook dinner, and yet Hardy is willing and confident enough to start something new. Already established as one of the elite female boxers in the world, Hardy is going to cross over and make her mixed martial arts debut against Alice Yauger at Bellator 180 on Saturday at Madison Square Garden in New York.
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“Everyone started asking me since I started boxing if I would make the move to MMA,” said Hardy, who last boxed in May, when she defeated Edina Kiss. “The idea was always floating around in my head, but there were so many things that I wanted to accomplish in boxing before I even tried MMA. Holly Holm was extremely accomplished in boxing, and she made the move to MMA. Unfortunately, I’m at a stage in my career when they’re not paying the female champions.
“For all of the titles that I want in boxing, none of the girls are
willing to come over here, because they won’t pay them what they
deserve,” she added. “They’re making the money in Mexico, Canada,
Australia and in Switzerland. They don’t get paid in America. They
won’t come here, so I don’t have the opportunities to go after
those titles and get those belts. I’m hopeful that I stay active in
both sports, and it will encourage the boxing community to further
female fighting in America.”
Money was a significant factor in her decision. There have been times in the past when she has been late on her rent. Her largest payday was $12,000, which she received for fighting Shelly Vincent on NBC Sports in August. Lou DiBella, one of boxing’s good guys by all accounts, serves as Hardy’s promoter. However, she has become a victim of the landscape: If you are not an elite fighter -- male or female -- it can be difficult to make ends meet as a boxer.
“Lou is really, really good to me,” Hardy said. “Lou wants what’s best for me, and he went out of his way to make this Bellator show happen. I love boxing, but boxing doesn’t love me back. I fought on a few Al Haymon cards. I’d love to be managed by Al Haymon, but Al doesn’t have any girls yet. Lou hates MMA, but he loves me, so I’m getting this chance.
“The fact is that I’m lucky if I clear $10,000 a fight,” she added. “People have this illusion that women’s boxing is on the rise, but it really isn’t. My largest payday was $12,000 against an undefeated fighter on NBC Sports for a WBC title. I also have a ticket-selling requirement. My last fight at the Barclays Center, I sold nearly $40,000 worth of tickets from my hands, in addition to getting paychecks that small. So, yeah, it’s frustrating and it’s a reason why I’m making this move and this sacrifice. It’s not easy.”
It has never been easy for Hardy. A native of a small corner of South Brooklyn called Gerritsen Beach, Hardy speaks in a gravelly tone. She is the oldest of three and was a tomboy growing up, playing community softball and soccer. Her parents worked two jobs each so Hardy and her siblings could attend private school. A graduate of John Jay College with a degree in forensic psychology, she had aspirations of one day working for the FBI. Those plans were derailed when she had her daughter, who often comes with her mom when she us training. A messy divorce followed, and for a time, Hardy lived with her sister, doing odd jobs to pay the bills. She did not want to be a fulltime police officer, which would have been a step towards a career in forensic psychology; consequently, she did everything from work as a secretary in the Bowery Lighting District and running websites to teaching exercise classes in tiny basements in her old neighborhood, delivering textbooks and doing volunteer work for USA Boxing.
Finally, in 2010, her sister got her a gift certificate to a couple of evening classes at a local karate school that opened nearby. Hardy was 28 at the time, with little thought of dragging this out beyond using karate and kickboxing as a tool to stay in shape.
“My sister told me I had to get out, because all I did was work and bitch,” Hardy said with a laugh. “Anytime anyone offered me money I would find a way to work. Within three weeks, I was in my first fight on the undercard of Chris Algieri’s world kickboxing title. When they opened the place just a few blocks from the house, it just made sense. I wanted to go in there and work out.
“I had no intention of fighting, but the instructor there called and said we have a girl who’s about 130 pounds who’s had two fights and do you want to take the fight. I was like, ‘Why not?’” she added. “My momma taught me when I was young that nobody hits you like she did, so I wasn’t scared. I was just learning. I beat up the girl so bad. I won, and I loved it.”
After she ran through every kickboxing opponent in the tristate area, Hardy turned to boxing, looking for more opportunities. She advanced quickly there, too, reaching the 2012 U.S. Olympic Trials, where she lost to eventual Olympian Mikaela Mayer at 132 pounds, up from Hardy’s natural 125. Now that she feels she has reached an impasse with boxing, she is committed to this new endeavor. Hardy admits she does not know much about Yauger, thrusting all of her focus on what she needs to do to win.
“There is a tremendous difference between kickboxing and MMA,” Hardy said. “You have wrestling, karate, jiu-jitsu and judo, all of those other disciplines that these girls have been doing since they were in their first-grade pictures in their karate suits. Here I am a newbie. It’s been a complete adjustment to training four or five different disciplines and then putting them all together; it’s extremely challenging.
“I used to have a full day at Gleason’s, and now I’m traveling to different gyms,” she added. “It’s costing me a fortune between the traveling and the coaching, the transportation and the babysitting. I’m sacrificing work. I’m sacrificing clients. It’s been a tremendous overall sacrifice. If I didn’t think I was going to be successful, I wouldn’t do it. At the end of the day, I’m a fighter. You go in that ring, you owe me money.”
Joseph Santoliquito is the president of the Boxing Writer's Association of America and a frequent contributor to Sherdog.com's mixed martial arts and boxing coverage. His archive can be found here.
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