Former NFL player turned professional MMA fighter Greg Hardy is back in action this weekend at UFC Fight Night San Antonio, facing Juan Adams in a heavyweight division affair.
If there is one major goal that Hardy wants to accomplish, it would be for him to become the greatest fight sport heavyweight of all-time.
“I’m honestly looking into how to officially retire on that side. I’ve always wanted and always said that if I had the opportunity to go back and get that yellow jacket, that’s a goal that I have for myself but the way things have been going in this field, the way things are looking on the boxing side, the way everything is just coming together, it’s over for me on that side,” Hardy said on Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show (via Jed Meshew of MMA Fighting). “I feel like it would be disrespectful at this point after getting such a warm welcome - well, as warm as it can get - such a great welcome to the fight world, I feel like it would disrespectful to go back and even teeter-totter. I’m fully committed and it’s all eyes on the belt. I’m looking into it, doing some work in there (with boxing). I’ve got some of the greatest coaches in the world at American Top Team. Just getting the opportunity to move back and forth between different arts, I found a nice spot in boxing. I’m starting to develop a love for it, a like for it, and a yearning to actually get in there and try it out. I think, with the blessing of the big man upstairs, that it’s something I would love to look into and start fighting pretty soon and wet my feet. I think I could be one of – if not the – the greatest fight sports heavyweight of all-time. Not even just MMA, just the greatest combat sports heavyweight. I’m versatile, you know?”
Hardy has no professional or amateur boxing experience to speak of at this point, but has competed eight times as a professional and amateur MMA fighter.
Adams has been talking a lot of trash to Hardy in the lead up to their bout, but Hardy sees it all as Adams trying to sell the fight.
“Whatever he needs to do to sell the fight on his end,” Hardy said. “When you’re talking about peasants and children - obviously I’ve got some experience dealing with children - when you deal with children they act out and the lash out. That’s really the only way they know how to act. they don’t know how to act like professionals, they don’t know how to act like gentlemen, and they don’t know how to act like world-class fighters and that’s what I’m trying to keep my mind on and keep my actions reflecting in that world. So I haven’t seen or payed attention to a lot of anything he’s saying. I’m not really worried about it at all.”
UFC Fight Night San Antonio takes place on Saturday, July 20 from the AT&T Center on San Antonio, Texas with Rafael Dos Anjos and Leon Edwards headlining. Fightful is providing live coverage of the event, which airs live on ESPN.
