Revelations that UFC welterweight Dan Hardy is suffering from a congenital heart condition known as Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome could spell the end of his career as a mixed martial artist.
Hardy, who has a 25-10 professional record, made the revelations in an interview with Bloody Elbow, shortly after he was unexpectedly pulled from the UFC on Fox 7 event scheduled for April 20 in San Jose, Calif.
At the time when it was first reported that the British fighter had been dropped from the card, word was that it was due to an injury. That injury now turns out to be a heart defect which has spooked the California State Athletic Condition (CSAC) enough to want to prevent him from competing.
Hardy says that the condition was discovered following an EKG test he underwent prior to next month’s scheduled fight against Matt Brown—something the CSAC asks for before it sanctions any fighter. The one-time championship contender has had an EKG before, back in 2004 before his fight against Pat Healey, and that had revealed an irregular heartbeat. However, he was cleared to fight anyway.
“In the back of my mind, I’ve been thinking that if I did go ahead and fight, and something happened, then that would be on the sport,” Hardy said, per Bloody Elbow.
“It’s good that we’ve got this test in place, because we don’t want something like that happening in the sport. Not only would it be a terrible thing, but it would do a lot of damage in the public eye. I think maybe more states should require this testing, as well.”
The news comes at a time in Hardy’s life when he’s managed to turn around what seemed like a terminal slide involving four straight losses. He now stands at two impressive wins and was getting ready to become a serious player at 170 pounds once again after his first UFC loss to champion Georges St-Pierre back in 2010. Those hopes may now be over.
Hardy, who says he’s in the best shape of his life after implementing significant diet and exercise changes, which included a psychedelic odyssey among Peruvian tribes, believes the news of his condition could mean that he will have to refocus his energy on something else.
“I’m certainly feeling like it’s a prod from the universe to kind of reassess and look at where I’m at, because I know there are a lot of things I want to do in my life as well, so this might be a good sign to refocus and do something different, perhaps,” he said.
“I’ve been thinking about it, and I don’t want to think for a second that I’m done fighting, because I still love training and fighting. At the same time, I also feel that there are lots of other things that I should be doing, things that I should be concentrating on in different areas of my life.”
Whatever the next steps are for the exciting welterweight, it will ultimately be down to the UFC to decide. The promotion knows it will have difficulty getting him licensed to fight in California, and now that the condition is on his record, it might also now cause problems elsewhere.
Hardy believes there’s still a possibility he could be cleared to fight in Europe and Australia, depending on what the UFC wants, but he knows that heart problems are no joke for athletes. Shawn Tompkins, a highly regarded MMA coach and former fighter, died in 2011 in his sleep due to a congenital heart condition. And only last month, Muay Thai and kickboxing star Ramon Dekkers died at just 43 in what reports suggest was due to a heart attack.
For now Hardy will go to his home country in the UK for a second opinion, though he says he’s more than ready for life outside the cage.
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