Former NFL defensive end Greg Hardy seemed to have found some form of redemption on Tuesday night. The 29-year-old made his debut on Dana White’s Contender Series, where he scored an emphatic knockout win over Austen Lane in less than a minute of action.
UFC president Dana White, for one, was greatly impressed by Hardy’s performance, that he wants a quick turnaround for American Top Team fighter.
“Obviously, he’s got a lot of raw talent, and he’s very powerful, and he looked damn good in his showing at the Dana White Tuesday Night Contender Series,” White told TMZ Sports. “So, we signed him to a different type of deal, deals we’ve done with other people where you see some promise, and you give the athletes the opportunity to build themselves up, get better.”
“In a perfect world, what I’d love to do is turn him around and (have him fight) again in the last fight of the Contender Series, the last fight of the season (in July),” he added.
Hardy is also quite a controversial figure, mainly for being signed to the UFC with a previous domestic violence case. White also explained why they ended up doing so, despite the company’s supposed staunch viewpoint against domestic violence.
“This guy can become Mother Teresa and start healing the sick and doing all kinds of things, this is how he’s always gonna be looked at,” White said. “What I respect about the guy is he did something really bad and horrible. He went through everything you need to go though after you do something disgusting like that. Then he hit rock bottom, picked himself back up, started to work his way up to become not only a better human being but a better athlete.”
”Everything that I see in the guy ... he’s changed.”
Prior to his professional debut, Hardy had three amateur fights, all of which he won by first-round stoppage as well.
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