Getty Dana White is president of the UFC.
UFC president Dana White is easily the most successful promoter in MMA history, and there’s a pretty solid argument to be made that he’s the best across all of combat sports in general. But recently released UFC star Dan Hardy found out exactly what happens when someone tries to tell White what he and the UFC should do next. Hardy revealed to MMA Fighting how White responded after Hardy turned down two comeback fights pitched to him by UFC officials. Hardy hoped for a different kind of opponent or a release from his UFC contract altogether. Instead, he caught some chuckles.
“I even spoke to Dana about it a couple of times about it, and he just kind of laughed at me,” Hardy said. “These are actually his words: ‘Why would you want to do that? You’ve got a job for life.’”
Of course, Hardy ended up not having a job for life. In fact, Hardy ended up not having either of the two UFC jobs he had.
He was fired from his commentary role earlier this year, and now he’s been released from his contract as a UFC fighter, too.
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Hardy Turned Down UFC Fights
Hardy revealed in that same interview that the UFC offered him return fights against veteran stars Joe Lauzon and Jim Miller, but that he turned each of them down due to personal reasons.
Hardy’s last UFC fight was back in 2012. The 39-year-old wanted to make a comeback, but he wanted to pick his opponent, too.
“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,” Hardy said.
So Hardy was interested in comeback fights with the UFC but only on his terms. Moreover, it seems like Hardy still feels pretty justified in having that stance.
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Hardy Stands Behind Actions That Maybe Got Him Canned
It also seems from the interview that Hardy believes he was in the right in both recent instances to which the UFC seems to have taken offense at him.
In one case, Hardy confronted referee Herb Dean while working commentary for television. After that stunning move, White told the media confronting officials like that was off-limits and could lead to termination.
In another instance, Hardy got into an argument with a PR contractor that the UFC employs in the UK. That argument was apparently why Hardy got axed from his commentary role, but both things happening in succession probably didn’t help.
Regardless, just about one day after Hardy suggested in an interview with Submission Radio last week that he should be released from his UFC contract as a fighter, he received that release via email.
Hardy had worked with the UFC in some capacity for 13 years. He called his exit from the UFC “weird” but is now at least free to pursue his interests outside of the company in full.
So White might have laughed off the idea of Hardy having a say in his comeback fight a while back, but the UFC ultimately gave Hardy the chance to have exactly that.
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