Dan Hardy has finally documented the moment that left a sour taste in his mouth upon his UFC exit. Initially, Hardy was let go by the company as a commentator for an unclear incident to both fans and Dan himself. Now, the reasoning for his departure as a fighter has been revealed to the media.
Hardy was allegedly fired as a commentator over an argument he had with a female employee on ‘Fight Island” last January. Although to Hardy, the view against a female was utterly irrelevant to the situation.
Dan Hardy Speaks on UFC Release
Soon after, Dan stated that he was released by the UFC as a fighter and called for a fight against Nick Diaz in Japanese MMA promotion RIZIN. Speaking with MMA Fighting, Hardy finally said about his UFC release and how it ended due to himself wanting the right opponent for his return.
“If I’m only fighting one or two more fights, I want to want to fight the guy,” he said to MMA Fighting.
“There a lot of guys on the roster, and I literally just don’t want to punch Joe Lauzon in the face. It’s as simple as that. As a fighter and a contractor, I should have some choice in that, I feel, especially at this point in my career, where you know for sure I’m not contending for a belt, and I’ve said that all the way through. I don’t want to be fighting people that are still in the mix because I respect the mix enough to know that I’m not in it. But either let me fight someone else that’s not in the mix, or let me go.”
“Something else that I said, which may have led to this situation,” Hard explained, speaking of the confrontation with Herb Dean, “was when I spoke to the UFC after the Dean circumstance. I said, ‘Please don’t forget, I work for mixed martial arts before I work for the UFC.’ And I think that kind of burned a little bit in their minds, because when you work for the UFC, they want you to be UFC through and through, and I’m a grass roots fighter, and I’ve got fighters around me all the time, people that have come through the sport and are having the same struggles and are dealing with issues that prolong in mixed martial arts’ career. So yeah, I think I was a little bit too unpredictable in that seat, perhaps, and I think after that moment, they were possibly waiting for an opportunity to push me to one side.”
“I’ve never felt like I had a bad relationship, but I’ve also never approached this job as it was a job,” Hardy continued. “Sometimes, my frustrations would be people were kind of dragging their feet and doing the necessary work, and this was a person I’d complained about before, because I felt like opportunity would be amiss, not only for myself, but for other fighters in the region, young fighters that the media are trying to get ahold of that the UFC office in the UK is not connecting them, and all these opportunities that would be amiss that were provided for me when I was a fighter.
“It wasn’t like things had always been like that. Things had gotten considerably worse. When I signed in 2008, I had interviews every week. I was busy. I was talking to everybody that was there. Now, these guys are hardly getting any media attention at all, and the disconnect is of the PR team and the office, and that was my frustration, which I’d mentioned a few times. But it seemed to me like perhaps my complaints had not gotten further up the chain. In fact, they’d actually gone back to the person that I had maybe complained about, because their mood toward me had changed.
“I think the Dean situation didn’t help either, but obviously, the UFC couldn’t terminate my contracts after that because that would look really bad, firing a commentator after commenting on fighter safety. I think that was kind of nail in the coffin, to be honest, because of how much control they need to have over those events.”
Future in Fighting
Hardy continued by stating that he believes that his relationship with the UFC was never wrong. However, his constant critiques of the company and various staff members could have been unknown catalysts to why he was released.
Now that the release is behind him, Dan can focus on continuing his fighting career in another promotion, although he never believed that he would be a fighter elsewhere. It’ll be interesting to see where Hardy lands and which type of opponent he’ll desire to face with so many different promotions around.
