Heather Hardy will compete in her fourth mixed martial arts contest tonight when she takes on Taylor Turner at Bellator 222. And from the sounds of it, the bout may be the fourth of many MMA fights to come, as juggling both boxing and MMA is proving to be too much for Hardy to handle:
“The biggest challenge is bouncing back-and-forth,” Hardy told Bloody Elbow. “To have to readjust to boxing and readjust back to MMA,” she confessed. “I can’t expect to go very far with either sport bouncing back-and-forth.”
Heather Hardy is still getting familiarized with life as a mixed martial artist, but she observed enough about MMA from the outside as well as her brief time on the inside to feel comfortable enough to compare this sport to the boxing world whence she came:
“The truth of the matter is if Ruiz didn’t knock out Joshua, he wasn’t winning the fight,” Hardy said. “I think everyone knows that. He could’ve knocked him down eight times, but if that fight went to a decision, Joshua was leaving with those belts. Boxing is a business before it’s a sport. No business is run as dirty as boxing.
“In MMA, it doesn’t matter how much bulls—t goes on behind closed doors,” she argued. “They make good fights. You watch a fight and you’re left wondering who might pull it off.”
And on a personal note, Heather Hardy is left to weigh the pros and cons before making a decision on which sport to devote the bulk of her time to, but from the sounds of it, MMA is beginning to get strides ahead:
“I’m not really promoted in boxing right now, and it’s a dangerous sport to be in when you’re not protected,” Hardy said. “It’s been on my mind heavy. Do I just want to sink in. If Bellator is going to invest in me, do I want to sink in the last year-and-a-half or so seeing how far I can get. Not just doing one fight here and there, but actually moving up the ranks,” she continued. “It’s a decision I’ll have to sit down with my team and think about after this fight.”
Do you expect Heather Hardy to make a full-time leap to MMA?
