Heather Hardy holds no grudge. She deserves it, but she doesn't.
Let's get that out of the way.
But the summer of 2024 is likely to be very different for Hardy than the summer of 2023. Last year, Hardy was due to get a big fight she coveted: a rematch with undefeated featherweight champion Amanda Serrano at the American Airlines Center in Dallas. While this wasn't an official farewell for Hardy, many assumed it would be in the form of another title shot if she didn't pull through in Texas.
The fight played out as expected, with Serrano dominating on her way to a shutout victory, but Hardy refused to give up. In a word, it was the epitome of her career: full throttle, full throttle, no brakes.
That's why the fans love her and cheer her on, win or lose, but when the fighter returns to the hotel and starts seeing double, the cheering stops.
Hardy called her longtime promoter, Lou DiBella, who sent her to the doctor. The Brooklyn native passed a CT scan and an MRI that came back normal. The diagnosis was a severe concussion and she was told to avoid punches for the next six to eight months.
However, Hardy's eyesight never returned to normal.
“I never got my vision back,” she says, “I just got used to having poor vision.”
And fighters fight, so Hardy chose to face bare-knuckle champion Christine Ferrea on May 11 in Connecticut.
“I started training without understanding what was going on in my head. I was training to not get hit, but I was training with double vision, so by the end of the training session it was like I was looking through a paper towel holder – there was just a bright light shining on me and it took hours for it to return to normal.”
She lost weight, vomited, and had headaches, but she kept it all to herself.
“I didn't tell anybody what was going on,” she said. “Everyone thought I was having a nervous breakdown, so I finally told (Gleason's Gym owner) Bruce (Silverglade) and they sent me to the doctor. Long story short, I can't even jog anymore. My mind is going crazy, I can't even run. I can't hit a baseball. That was it.”
The cancellation of the bout was announced on April 24, with Hardy posting on Instagram with the caption, “UPDATE: Due to brain damage I will not be competing on May 11th.”
Hardy's post explaining why she will never compete again was one of the most honest and heartbreaking I've ever read. Now, a little over a month after the announcement, she is speaking openly, emotionally and defiantly about her diagnosis, but she is not questioning what she heard from a highly regarded doctor in New York.
“If I was in a car accident and got that diagnosis, I certainly would want someone to confirm that I couldn't run,” Hardy said, “but we've been dealing with doctors at the New York Athletic Commission for 15 years. Between sparring and professional fights, I've probably been in about 300 minor car accidents, and over 30 professional fights. So I don't need someone else telling me I can't take another hit, that I'm going to die. The doctors said that every time you have a concussion, a part of your brain dies, it never grows back, and you lose everything that was in that part of your brain.”
There are no bright spots in this story, but if you really want to find a bright spot, Hardy was told that things won't get worse, but he doesn't know if they'll get better.
“I don't know how well I'm going to recover from this,” she says, “and the doctor grabbed me by the face and said, 'Are you sure you can't hit your head again? You think so? Did I say it loud enough this time, Heather?' And that was it. I told Bruce and I told my mom. I'll give you my mom's famous line: I called her and I was crying and told her what the doctor said. I said, 'What do I do?' And she said, 'Well, I think I need the dog and the stick.'”
We both laughed; it's always a much-needed moment of levity when Hardy's mother, Linda, is involved. I told her that a mother-daughter reality show would solve all her problems in life after boxing, while the 42-year-old prepares for the next chapter in her life.
Naturally, she didn't do anything in particular to prepare for it, she just jumped into the fire. As reported by BoxingScene in March, Hardy was primarily interested in advising fighters at her home gym, Gleason's, in Brooklyn. Now she's going all in as a manager, and one of her first clients is a name that any avid fan of the sport will no doubt recognize: WBC interim flyweight champion Kenya Enriquez. It's the perfect project for “The Heat,” and she knows all too well that the talented Tijuana native has been largely ignored by the wave of popularity of Serrano, Katie Taylor, Claressa Shields, Seniesa Estrada, and others. So Hardy is already hard at work, lobbying the WBC to allow Enriquez to challenge full champion Gabriela Alanis, hoping to get the bout scheduled for their August show in New York. She's also working on social media for her fighter and working with an immigration lawyer to get her paperwork in order.
In other words, Hardy is fighting full speed and no brakes, just like when she fought. There are the Cottrell sisters from Hawaii, Elijah Allison who is 2-0, and a mixed martial arts star with ambitions to fight Colombia's Alejandra Lara. So why should a boxer sign Heather Hardy?
“It's more like, 'Why should we sign with you?'” she said. “I'm not saying this because I want to brag, I'm just being honest. I know what doors I can open and I also know from coaching at Gleason's for the past 10 years that a lot of people want it. Well, they say they want it, they want it, but when you find out what it takes to get it, they're a pain and above all, money. These kids have their own coaches and their training camps, but I have them train with me because I want to know that when you shake someone's hand in a meeting, you will speak with respect and properly and represent me properly. I want to see you train, I want to see you train with my team and know how you box. I don't want to be a manager who just does crap in his office. I've already told Kenya to come train with me. I have another girl, Alejandro Lara, who is a professional mixed martial artist but is trying to make the transition to boxing. I told her the same thing: come train with me. Before I call her and say, 'Hey, can you please put my girl on your card?' I have to see who you are and how you're going to represent me.” People do business with me, they know I'm not a liar and I have no intention of signing with or representing a liar.
“It doesn't matter how good a fighter you are if you're difficult to work with,” Hardy continues, “I mean, if you have a coach who's known in the business for taking guys off the mat because they're not in shape or they don't think they can win, it brings that fighter down in your reputation. It doesn't matter how good a fighter is if you have a manager who doesn't show up to medicals on time or who always returns his tickets. So me being a manager means I'm going to tell you exactly how to get to the top. And that has nothing to do with boxing.”
Hardy's passion and enthusiasm is clear when she talks about her new endeavor, as if boxing, at least as a competitor, is no longer a necessity. The rest is her life. It's not easy to quit boxing, especially when you see how it has impacted the kids she has coached at Gleason's. That led her to start the Porch Light Foundation after her retirement.
“I've been with the Give a Kid a Dream program for about 11 or 12 years,” she says, “and when they graduate, they leave the program. So I always tell them, 'Mommy's porch light is always on. If you ever want to come back, you can.'”
She takes a breath and then continues.
“And so for years I had kids that I just couldn't leave alone, and I paid for their gym memberships, I taught them for free, I took them to the gym. Sometimes they just needed help finding a job and I had to let them all go because I wasn't fighting anymore. So I finally asked for help, because I'm Irish and we don't ask for help. We do everything ourselves. And finally I asked for help for these kids and someone inspired me to start a foundation so they know they can always come home. I see them so many times, they come in as kids and they're so hopeful but they get pulled back again. So you just keep bringing them back. Every second they're there, they're not hurting or hurting anybody.”
I told Hardy that no one in her situation would think of anyone else.
“I know,” she said. “The thing is, it helps me. It gives me a goal to go to the gym every day and work hard for it.”
Once upon a time, Hardy's time in the gym was preparing for the bright lights. And if it weren't for this forced retirement, Hardy might have won a bare-knuckle title and started a new chapter in his fighting career. Maybe he'd return to boxing, get two wins and another big-money fight would come his way. Or maybe he'd earn a salary that would allow him to continue helping kids in need at Gleason's. But now none of that will happen. And that's tough.
“Bruce was there for me, Lou was there for me, the doctors were there,” she says, “but it makes you feel like I gave everything to boxing. I gave my eyesight, I gave my heart. I can't even jog anymore. I gave everything to boxing and now I don't even have a home and I have to think about a full-time job. It's not fair. I was a world champion, I was a pioneer in so many different sports. What am I doing? I can't even jump rope anymore. Boxing's gone from me and nobody's going to help me. So, like every other career, I have to help myself.”
Genuine. Honest. Defiant. And not spiteful. Hardy claims that all the time, and you believe her because she never lies. In a world of liars, the truth only exists between the ropes, but Hardy has been a unicorn because she's stayed true to herself, flaws and all, in and out of the ring. That hasn't changed, except for the in-ring part. Those days are over, and it seems she's embraced it.
Did the boxing world just ignore it, put it on the news for a few days, then forget about it? I think if this former world champion who broke down the doors, was known worldwide, and starred in a big fight televised by premium outlets, had been a man, the reaction would have been more widespread. But in women's boxing, it's apparently not just paychecks that women lose out on. And that's sad, because if listening to Hardy's story can change the trajectory of one fighter's career, that's a ray of hope here. If anything, the boxing world has already moved on. But Hardy has weathered it all well and refuses to blame or blame the industry that let her down. These are my words, not hers.
“(Reactions) have been all over the place,” Hardy said. “A lot of people feel sorry for me. Some people think I'm trying to make people feel sorry for me. So, the reactions vary, but at the end of the day, I think I'm the only person who knows everything I'm dealing with. This isn't just career-ending. My health is really bad, and I'm taking it lightly, but I can't leave the house for more than five hours a day. I was biking past the pier, and any runner, when the weather gets nice, you get that feeling of relief that, 'Today I can run without a jacket, I can finally run in a sports bra,' and then this feeling hits me that I'll never be able to do that again. It was very sad. But I had to tell myself, 'Damn, you're not in a wheelchair. It could always be worse. I'm on the right side of the mud and I'm dealing with a bunch of issues: gray hair, retirement, kids going to college. But grandma's doing her best.”
And Heather Hardy will be fine.
For more information about the Porchlight Foundation, contact Gleason’s Gym at (718) 797-2872.
