Heather Hardy: “When you have a concussion, that piece of your brain dies, and I can’t afford to have any more of the dead stuff.”

Heather Hardy: “When you have a concussion, that piece of your brain dies, and I can’t afford to have any more of the dead stuff.”

“My grandpa says I am on the right side of the dirt.” A rare little hint of humour for a fighter who is dealing with the extreme darkness of her trade.

It was an answer to the usual question that starts virtually every Zoom interview. “How are you?” I asked Heather Hardy. An admittedly stupid question when I know full well that she isn’t alright. How could she be? Hardy has had to choose between her brain and her desire to fight on.

The interview was never going to be easy. I knew right there would be tears and plenty of them. I knew I would be left questioning, not for the first time, my love and involvement in a sport that can and does kill and leave many of the survivors scarred for life. Damaged beyond repair.

Heather Hardy only walked into a boxing gym when she was 28. But she is now damaged. The only hope is that her condition doesn’t deteriorate in the coming years.

“They have said as long as I don’t get hit in the head anymore, it won’t get any worse. But they don’t know how much of my brain has been lost.” Hardy will hope the medical advice is correct. But nobody knows. Boxing history tells us that she will be extremely lucky if her condition stays as it is now. Hardy is a born fighter. You sense her biggest fight is still to come. Hopefully, her greatest victory also.

Hardy could be excused if her love for the sport had long since gone. The struggles of the early years fighting for a pittance and acceptance for her side of the sport, coupled with what that sport has done to her. But the passion for boxing is seemingly unwavering. And with no regrets.

“Do I regret it? No,” Hardy told me. “I don’t regret anything in my life. Boxing has made me who I am. I love my career. I love everything I did. I am just at a crossroads. Do I deserve all this because I wasn’t that good? It’s just really fucked up. I gave everything and nobody is now helping me.

“I love boxing and I truly believe that boxing saves lives. I have seen people that I love die in the ring, but I have seen how many lives it saves, myself included. I don’t regret anything. I wouldn’t do anything different.”

There have been lessons learned, it might be too late for Hardy, but now applying her years of knowledge as a coach, that experience is being passed onto her fighters. “I won’t let my fighters spar more than once a week.” Hardy understands where a large portion of the damage is done.

Hardy hasn’t fought since last August. A rematch with Amanda Serrano that will serve as the final curtain on her combat sports career. A typically brave effort, but one that ultimately led to Hardy having to call time. The usual effects of a hard fight lingering longer than normal.

“When I got out of the ring with Amanda, it’s quite common after a fight, but I felt dizzy, and my vision was blurred,” Hardy says of the aftermath of her final fight. “I was seeing double. I went for an MRI, and the Dr said it was the effects of a concussion, and I couldn’t get hit in the head anymore, but I should be fine after a few months.”

But it didn’t get any better for Hardy. After returning to training, her heart rate would skyrocket, and her vision would become blurred. A very light sparring session left her unable to see properly for two days. Hardy now has no peripheral vision. Normal things like driving and running are now beyond her. But maybe the acceptance that her fighting career was now a thing of the past was perhaps the hardest thing of all to take.

“I was feeling nauseous. My weight dropped to 115 lbs. I was going days without sleeping. I was kinda just melting away. The hardest thing for me was to admit that I was too weak to fight.”

With each question, the tears would flow freely. I thought I was in the middle of an online therapy session with the proud fighter who now couldn’t do what once defined her. I felt like I was intruding into her deepest thoughts. A place where I didn’t really belong. An unwanted visitor making an uncomfortable situation even more uncomfortable. I had no answers for her. Maybe it helped Hardy to talk about it. But then I remembered that I was one of many who had asked her the same exact questions. How could that possibly help her, I wondered? Reliving an ongoing trauma that might never end.

“I have had close to forty professional fights. About eighty amateur fights in three different sports. It’s not in the fights. It’s in the sparring,” Hardy relayed to me as the tears flowed once more. “I’ve had like the equivalent of 3,000 car accidents, or someone has hit me over the head with a board about 3,000 times. The Dr said, “When you have a concussion, that piece of your brain dies, and I can’t afford to have any more of the dead stuff.

“I have had a sparring session in Kickboxing where I got heel kicked in the head and I sat at the side of the ring and I couldn’t remember leaving my house. I was thinking, how did I get here? The last thing I remembered was being in my kitchen. In my first fight with Amanda, I was unconscious for a couple of rounds. After that crazy first round, the next thing I remembered was the ring girl holding up the sign for round six.”

A clumsy but obvious question nevertheless of whether she regretted not retiring earlier left was met with Hardy going back in time, thinking about what brought her to where she is now. Hard memories of a hard sport.

“I couldn’t have afforded to retire sooner,” Hardy told me. “Do you think I wanted to fight Amanda Serrano twice? No way. People were saying you are 42, of course, you have to retire, you have got brain damage. I had a Bare Knuckle world title fight on the table for $50,000, money that I needed. This wasn’t a walk-off into the sunset and leave-the-gloves-in-the-ring kind of thing.

“I wished they would have paid me more money so that when I was unbeaten and a world champion, so I didn’t have to go over to MMA. Every time I went in there, I was fighting for my life. I was over my head in debt, trying to keep my daughter in school. I was screaming for equal pay, and nobody listened. Now look at me.” Words from Hardy that really do amplify her situation.

“When I made my pro debut, I was paid $200 a round. I know girls who were having world title fights who were making that as well. Women’s boxing is still in its infancy for sure, but it is at its most dangerous now because the girls are in these hard competitive fights, risking their lives, but they are not taken care of financially. I can’t get disability, because I signed contracts, so I signed away my rights. There is not even a union in boxing.

“My whole life is over, and I am hurt. Just think about that. I gave boxing everything. When I was asking for equal pay, everyone was saying nobody cared about women’s boxing, I still had to come home and take care of my little girl. I still do. I still have to worry about her tuition fees and all this other shit. I gave my whole body to boxing. I can’t even drive because I can’t see.”

Heather Hardy should be remembered, and I do think history will be kind to her. Hopefully, she knows that. A former WBO featherweight champion who only lost three times in twenty-eight fights. Two of those defeats came at the hands of Amanda Serrano. Hardy told me that she was once told she would never make the Boxing Hall of Fame. But I think she should be on the ballot at the very least. An early pioneer who has paid a very high price for changing the narrative of her sport. That Hall of Fame would be a better place with Heather Hardy in it.

“Hopefully, people remember me for how brave I was,” Hardy added. Maybe that was the problem. A case of being too brave for her own good. Hardy was never stopped as a professional. Even the big-punching Serrano couldn’t stop her. But you do think of those two fights with Serrano and view them differently now. Especially that second meeting last year. A fight that ultimately ended her career.    

Hardy gave everything and got very little in return. Broken dreams. A broken body. A fighter who didn’t earn anywhere near what she should have done. She traded on her toughness. But Hardy was also a better fighter than I think even she believes. But her time in the sport has sadly left a permanent mark. Damage that we can’t see. At least, not fully.

In many ways, boxing failed her. Right now would be a good time to put that right. Heather Hardy didn’t get the help that she needed when she was an active fighter. Hopefully, in retirement, that help now will come. I sense Hardy will need it now more than ever.

Photo Credit: Matchroom Boxing