Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) president Dana White isn’t the only one critical of the effort put forth by Greg Hardy’s UFC Fort Lauderdale opponent.
On April 27, Hardy found himself in another co-headlining spot for a UFC on ESPN+ event. This time, Hardy shared the Octagon with Dmitrii Smoliakov. Hardy picked up his first win under the UFC banner with a first-round TKO victory.
Bisping Talks Hardy’s Opponent & Praises White
After the fight, UFC president Dana White expressed regret in booking the bout as he felt Smoliakov didn’t belong inside the Octagon. During a recent edition of his “Believe You Me” podcast, Bisping agreed:
“Listen, the guy looked terrible. His opponent Dmitrii Smoliakov, he looked terrible he did. The UFC, I think they realize that Greg Hardy has all the makings to be a star regardless of his controversial background. He’s got a head start, people from the sport will know who he is, a lot of the fan base from ESPN will know who he is for maybe his football or for maybe some of the negative headlines that no doubt dominated the ESPN SportsCenter pages when it was happening, so they know who he is.”
Bisping went on to say that he appreciated White for being “honest” after the fight:
“I’ll tell you what I did like. After the fact, Dana White did an interview with Megan Olivi and he was like, ‘wow that dude f*cking sucked.’ He said, ‘yeah Greg did what we hoped he would do, he went out there and he beat him in the first round.’ He said, ‘but we thought that the other guy would at least show up.’ He said, ‘he looked like he didn’t wanna get hit, he wanted out of there,’ and Dana kind of regretted making that match-up. Which I thought as a promoter, and I’m not trying to kiss Dana’s ass before anybody else starts, I thought that was actually very honest of him to say that.”
