“This is gonna make Bo Jackson look like a joke.” — Greg Hardy
Maybe he means Michael Jordan, the IBM Engineer from Poughkeepsie?
Embattled Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) heavyweight and former NFL lightning rod, Greg Hardy, only needed one knockout win inside the Octagon to go from, “Guys, I’m a loser but I’m working hard and still learning” to “I’m going to make Bo Jackson look like a joke.”
For the uninitiated, Jackson was a successful two-sport athlete in NFL and MLB.
And once Hardy has achieved that lofty goal, he’s going to prove that he’s to mixed martial arts (MMA) what Michael Jordan was to basketball, though at this stage of his career, he’s much closer to the Jordan who played for the Chicago White Sox.
“I’m the fights sports’ athlete version of what Michael Jordan could be,” Hardy said during the post-fight press conference (watch it). “This is just getting started. We’re scratching the surface, basically. People are gonna boo, it happens. But all I heard was cheers, man. I heard people that love me, I heard my crowd, my fans, the people that I’ve embraced came down here, people who’ve been living here for two, three years accept me and enjoy what I put out.”
Those cheers are likely coming from female UFC fans. Sure, Hardy was involved in a horrific domestic violence case, but women love him, according to promotion president Dana White, who also serves as Hardy’s guardian angel.
Hardy (4-1) stands at 1-1 inside the Octagon. After dropping his UFC debut by way of disqualification, the “Prince of War” stopped the hapless Dmitrii Smoliakov at the UFC Ft. Lauderdale event last Sat. night on ESPN+ (highlights here).
Maybe it’s time for Hardy to get a boost in competition? Just not this guy (yet).