Hardy Eats Samoan Sleeper, Nearly Falls Through Ropes

The former UFC fighter and Carolina Panthers defensive end is finding out how tough of a game boxing is, even at the lower levels of the sport.

Greg Hardy has taken another L in his combat sports career, losing via knockout in a Team Combat League show against Patrick Mailata.

The controversial former NFL football player and UFC prospect has been hot and cold all through his fighting career, going 7-5 in MMA and 5-2 as an amateur boxer (0-1 in bare knuckle boxing). Most recently, he won his pro boxing debut at the end of 2023 after his opponent refused to answer the bell for the second round.

A big series of ridiculous donnybrooks from Team Samoa’s Mailata were too much for Hardy to survive, though. Two left-right combos dumped “God of War” to the canvas where he nearly slipped through the ropes unconscious. And thus Hardy’s uneven performances against ground level opposition continues.

It wasn’t always like this. Hardy was brought in the UFC via Dana White’s Tuesday Night Contender Series back in 2018 as a potential future star. He was 3-0 as an amateur MMA heavyweight and beat his two Contender Series opponents via KO in the first minute of the first round.

But the moment he was stepped up the talent ladder he started to lose. Marcin Tybura and Tai Tuivasa knocked him out. A third loss in a row against Serghei Spivac convinced even Dana White that Hardy didn’t have what it takes.

So in 2022 Hardy exited the UFC to pursue a boxing career. And here we are seeing similar results from the troubled NFL exile. Will Greg Hardy turn things around? Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. We’ll see whether Hardy continues to cash paychecks in his quest to build himself up in boxing.