Greg Hardy, the former Pro Bowl defensive end whose NFL career was short-circuited by a domestic abuse conviction and other bad behavior, will undertake anger-management counseling as he continues to train in preparation for a professional MMA debut.
Hardy and his new MMA manager, Malki Kawa, announced the news Monday on The MMA Hour broadcast with host Ariel Helwani. As Hardy continues his training with well-known MMA camp American Top Team, he still isn’t sure when he will debut.
“I would love to debut tomorrow, man, but like I said, I have a lot of respect for my coaches and the actual sport,” Hardy said. “Seeing how hard these guys work, man, it’s pretty much going to be up to the coaches.”
In the meantime, the 28-year-old Hardy, who spent time with the Carolina Panthers and Dallas Cowboys but currently finds himself a free agent with no serious suitors, will undergo anger-management counseling beginning next week, according to Kawa, who also participated in the interview.
“He’ll do that for as long as he has to,” Kawa said of the treatment. “He understands the rules he has to abide by.”
Asked if he had an anger problem, Hardy responded that MMA training “has helped me in a lot of ways.”
“I have a lot of problems as a human being,” he said. “It’s not something where you’re just walking around saying, ‘I’m perfect.’ I have a lot of different issues that I’m just working through and working on. I would say this helps me channel everything. … I made mistakes and I’ve hurt people, and I’m sorry that all that happened.”
Hardy rejected—perhaps unconvincingly—the suggestion that he is only pursuing MMA because his NFL career appears to be over.
“I do not think that is fair,” he said. “I think [MMA] is something I’ve been wanting to do for a while, just, you know, as far as boxing and MMA and just getting into the business and cross-training because it’s wonderful for football players.”
In 2014, Hardy was convicted of assaulting his ex-girlfriend. He was placed on probation and later suspended by the NFL. But the Cowboys took a chance on him anyway, only to be rewarded by locker-room destabilization and a September cocaine arrest.
On Sunday, TMZ Sports posted videos of Hardy training at ATT, which houses several elite UFC competitors. Former UFC heavyweight Antonio Silva told TMZ Sports he believes Hardy could be in the UFC in one or two years.
Hardy credited ATT with what he said was a professional “turnaround.”
“I felt like joining that team and joining those guys was something that, you know, it was a step that I had to take to change what I had going on in my life,” Hardy said.
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