Heather Hardy

Heather Hardy (also known as Heather "The Heat" Hardy; born January 25, 1982) is an American professional boxer holding the WBC International Female Super Bantamweight title.^{[1][2][3][4][5][6]} She also is a trainer living and working in Brooklyn, New York.^[7][8][9]

Early life and family

Heather Hardy was born on January 25, 1982 to John and Linda Hardy.^[10] She has two younger siblings, Kaitlyn and Colin. Hardy had married her highschool sweetheart in 2004, but after some hard times the pair divorced in 2010.^[6][9][11] Hardy was raised in Gerritsen Beach in South Brooklyn.

While in school, Hardy was active in athletics, aspiring to become the first female pitcher for the New York Yankees. Hardy went on to major in Forensic Psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan.^[8] She graduated at the age of 22.

She intended to join the police department, but her plans derailed when she found out that she was pregnant with her daughter. After giving birth to her daughter, Hardy was a stay-at-home-mother, but was unsatisfied.

Boxing career

Heather started boxing in 2010 when she was going through a rough patch in her life: she was working a series of miscellaneous jobs to support her daughter, sister, and nephew and finalizing a divorce with her husband who would not pay child support. Within three weeks of training, Hardy, a 28 year old rookie, had her first fight in front of an average sized audience in Long Island, and won. Even though her first fight was just meant for fun, it helped her find out that boxing was her calling. ^[12] Regarding her first time in the ring, Hardy said "I'm shy by nature, so walking to the ring was like heading to the gas chamber. I'm probably exaggerating the crowd size, but it felt like I was in the Macy's Parade. When I got to my corner, a cousin told me to pretend a tiger was dropped in the ring and only one of us was getting out alive. I pummeled that girl so bad. And for the first time in my life, I felt like something was all mine. Ever since, I've had the passion to beat up the world. I still fight that way”. Shortly after, she quickly began winning other kickboxing and Muay Thai titles.^[13] Her determination and passion were soon noticed when she caught the eye of a professional trainer who offered to let her train at Gleason’s Gym. Hardy began to grow in popularity on the boxing scene and soon became known for her tenacity and determination in and out of the ring. In regards to what others thought about her fame, she mockingly said “'Yeah right, who's this little blonde white girl with the braids?' They knew me quick because I started tearin' ass". Despite her newfound popularity, Hardy remains humble; she can still be found selling tickets before her fights and training clients at Gleason’s.^[13] Heather knows that she has a long way to go since women’s boxing is in such bad shape, but remains hardworking.

Hardy first started training at Gleason’s Gym with Alicia Ashley, former World Boxing Council champion, but after losing her second amateur fight she went to work with Alicia’s older brother and trainer, Devon Cormack. Since then they have grown extremely close and Devon, a former kickboxing champion himself, has served not only as a mentor and manager, but also as a close friend. The pair pool their money together, and Devon has helped out with living arrangements. Heather said “We’re together in everything…I know other fighters, married to their trainers. We’re not, but we might as well be”.

The switch paid off. After only 11 months of training, Heather won the Metro and Regional title along with the USA Boxing 2011 National title. A year later, she received the NYC Golden Gloves Featherweight title and the honor of the Best Female Boxer of the Tournament. That same year she decided to try her hand at professional boxing. On August 2, 2012, Hardy made her professional debut at the Roseland Ballroom against Mikayla Nebel of Ohio. Heather’s determination and drive can be seen well before the moment in the four round bout when she was knocked down and stood back up to continue, but rather on the morning of the fight, when she and Devon set up shop in Times Square to sell $13,000 worth of tickets. She knew that she needed to show an important spectator in the audience that night, Lou Dibella, that she was a prized fighter, and that she meant business. In the end, she did just that: the result was a unanimous decision of 38-37, in Hardy’s favor.

Later on in 2013, Lou Dibella, a prolific boxing promoter, signed a long term contract with Hardy, his first and only female fighter. 2013 continued to be a terrific year for Hardy because in October she won the Super Bantamweight UBF Inter-Continental Title, and in 2014 she showed no signs of stopping.

That year she was able to earn and win five professional fights, which is extraordinary considering most female fighters only get about two. In June 2014, she fought in the first professional female fight at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center and was able to sell $24,000 worth of tickets. In November, she had her first ten-round match and won the title of WBC International Female Super Bantamweight champion.

She returned to Barclay’s for her third time on May 29, 2015 to fight Floridian native, Noemi Bosques, in an eight-round fight which was not scheduled for air on television. She was surprised to have won by split decision and a rematch was planned for the Super Bantamweight title at Barclay’s on December 5, 2015, which Heather also won. On August 1, 2015 in Brooklyn, Hardy was up against Renata Domsodi, a Hungarian fighter, to defend her title, and the fight was called when a bloodied Domsodi was KO’ed barely into the seventh round. Even with all of her successes that year, Heather was at a crossroads in her life when she considering switching to fighting in the MMA because the decline in women’s boxing. She witnessed all of the accomplishments that MMA female fighters like Rousey and Holm had received and was thinking about making the transition. However, she decided against it, saying “I’d never done any of the ground game before and my coach said my boxing was OK and I needed to be great something. So I said, ‘Let’s be great at boxing.’ I’m not great but I’m pretty damn good".

In 2016, Hardy made major strides for women’s boxing by landing a televised gig on NBCSN against Shelly Vincent.^[14] The scheduled ten round fight, took place on August 21 at 9 p.m. at the Ford Amphitheater in Coney Island, New York. Hardy emerged victorious from the fight and, as of August 2016, remains undefeated.

Mixed martial arts career

Hardy was scheduled to make her professional MMA debut against Brieta Carpenter at Invicta FC 21. However, the bout was cancelled due to an injury by Carpenter.^[15]

Hardy made her professional MMA debut at Bellator 180 against Alice Yauger on June 24, 2017 at the Madison Square Garden.^[16] She won the fight via TKO in the third round.^[17]

In the media

Following her rise to fame, Hardy has been a persistent voice for women’s boxing. In 2013, shortly after women’s boxing was declared as a featured sport in the 2012 London Olympics, an independent film director named Natasha Verma tackled the subject of the gender wage gap in boxing through her film “Hardy”.^[18] She interviewed Hardy on her experiences and talked about how she was changing the face of a generally male dominated sport.^[18] The film reached a funding goal of $10,000 online, and the movie went on to be screened at many film festivals. In 2014, another movie, called “The Heat”, was made about Hardy by PBS Indie Films.

On June 28, 2016, Hardy partnered with Dove on their #MyBeautyMySay campaign.^[19][20] They posted two videos: Beauty on your own terms, a compilation video of a variety of women including Heather, and a personalized video, called Heather’s story.^[19][20] As of August 2016, both videos have collected around a total of 14 million views together. In the promotional videos, Heather gives some background about how she took up boxing as a hobby, but now fights professionally and wants to draw attention to female boxers. For the majority of the video, Heather talks about her relationship with beauty and her profession.

Professional boxing record

Mixed martial arts record

References