Rowdy
Well-known member
- Mar 18, 2019
- 2,477
- 1
Getty Images
Long after the NFL cut ties with Greg Hardy, the UFC (with help from corporate partner ESPN) is attempting to turn him into a cage fighting star. On Saturday night he got his first official win.
The win was a flimsy excuse for a “fight,” as the UFC fed Hardy a newcomer named Dmitrii Smoliakov, a “fighter” who had no business in the Octagon. Hardy destroyed Smoliakov less than halfway into the first round, and the story of the fight was less that Hardy looked good than that Smoliakov looked bad — not to mention that the UFC looked bad for giving Hardy such an easy win.
Smoliakov appeared to be stepping into the cage with Hardy just to cash a paycheck and get out of there as soon as possible. The commentator on the broadcast of the fight, former UFC champion Dominick Cruz, succinctly described the fight by saying that Smoliakov “doesn’t want to show up and fight this guy.”
The UFC apparently thinks Hardy’s notoriety from his NFL days makes him a potentially lucrative draw. But if the UFC wants to get into the Greg Hardy business at all, the organization could at least give him a worthy opponent. Hardy has now had two official UFC fights, and both times the UFC gave him an easy opponent: Last time, Hardy fought a man who was coming off an ugly first-round knockout loss, and Hardy should have won easily but instead lost by disqualification when he illegally kneed his opponent in the head. This time, Hardy fought a man who quite clearly didn’t want to fight.
If the UFC is going to keep inviting Hardy into the Octagon, it could at least match him up with someone who has previously won a UFC fight and might give him a challenge. Feeding overmatched opponents to Hardy is just gross.
But the better question is why Hardy is in the Octagon at all. The NFL has taken plenty of warranted criticism for its handling of domestic violence, but even the NFL’s 32 teams all eventually decided they were done with Hardy. The UFC is not only still supporting him, but is bending over backward to help him win easy fights.