Heather Hardy is a professional boxer who has transitioned into professional MMA, with her debut being a win over Alice Yauger at Bellator 180.
UFC Lightweight Champion Conor McGregor released a photo of himself knocking Paulie Malignaggi down during a sparring session and according to Hardy, that action broke an “unspoken code” in the boxing world.
“There is an unspoken code,” Hardy said on The MMA Hour. “I know that when girls come out and spar me, and if I see video cameras coming, they always say, ‘this is for my personal use, I’ll never put it up on Instagram. It’s just so I can learn from it,’ and I’m like, ‘of course,’ but it’s something you say. I remember once a girl was like putting it up and didn’t tell me anything and I felt a certain type of way, so I wouldn’t start sparring until she shut it off. You don’t know what people are going to do, they might do stuff like this, so it’s totally an unspoken kind of rule.”
UFC President Dana White would later release a pair of short video clips showing Malignaggi being dropped as well.
The female boxing sensation does admit that it looks like Malignaggi did get dropped in that photo.
“It looked like a knockdown, it did,” Hardy said. “But I say that to say this: There was 45 minutes of sparring that we didn’t get to see.”
Conor McGregor versus Floyd Mayweather takes place on Saturday, August 26 from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. Fightful is providing live coverage of the event, with a post-show podcast to follow.
