Miesha Tate does not want to hear about your lofty goals, Greg Hardy…at least not yet if it’s as lofty as striving to become the greatest combat sports heavyweight of all time. On a recent episode of MMA Tonight, Miesha Tate tore into Greg Hardy for sharing such a goal with the public five fights into his professional MMA career:
“He’s got a lot of work to do before he even sniffs the greatest heavyweight of all time,” Tate began. “So these statements are just…he’s pulling them out of thin air. I don’t know where he gets any viable justification that he could be in that conversation of the greatest heavyweight of all time.
“Look, I appreciate that you’re enthusiastic about your career and what you have ahead of you, but I don’t think that’s possible. You look at Daniel Cormier who has been doing this the majority of his life, and he has accomplished so much in that time because it’s the single sport that he really has made his career out of. It’s a pretty asinine statement.”
Greg Hardy is currently 4-1 as a professional and 1-1 in the UFC. In his last bout, he had a dominant first-round knockout over Dmitrii Smoliakov. Afterwards, Hardy set out to be fighting’s Michael Jordan. So this isn’t the first time Hardy has let the world know the level of greatness he’s attempting to reach. And if you ask Miesha Tate, the goal should not have been uttered then, now, or at all at this stage of Hardy’s career:
“Even look at the quality of opponents who he has fought. I think they are fair to his skill set and his experience in the sport. But they are nowhere near the level of a Daniel Cormier, Stipe Miocic, Francis Ngannou. They’re not on the same playing field. He’s got all this confidence because, yeah, he’s knocking people out, and great. But just pump the breaks a little, because I guarantee you when get into that upper echelon, you’re not gonna be putting people to sleep like that. Because it’s a different level in competition.
“So anyways, I know he has his next bout coming up, so it’s one bout at a time, and he’s got to focus on what’s the next step ahead, not being the greatest heavyweight of all time because, to me, that’s ridiculous.”
Greg Hardy will attempt to begin adding some credence to his goal when he takes on Juan Adams at tomorrow night’s UFC San Antonio event.
Do you agree with Miesha Tate? Is Greg Hardy’s chase for HW Combat GOAT status ridiculous?
