The hardest blow Greg Hardy suffered in his UFC debut against Allen Crowder occurred after the bell when many in the MMA community branded Greg Hardy a cheater after Hardy was disqualified for an illegal knee in the second-round of his UFC debut. Coming into the UFC already trailed by a checkered past, the last thing Hardy needed, as far as public perception goes, was controversy inside the cage to pair with the controversy out of it, but that’s exactly what happened in the former NFL defensive end’s debut.

Greg Hardy has been called many things before and since his UFC debut, but two terms that Hardy cannot reconcile with are that of “loser” and “cheater”:

“In a game where it all lies on what you do in that cage, it’s hard to walk out a loser,” Hardy told MMA Junkie. “I’m not one – anybody can check out my history – I’ve dealt with it terribly in the past, and I’ve dealt with it great before, but it’s all the same outcome. I hate losing. I’m not a loser, I’m not a cheater. I said when I first came into this business: I earned everything that I have right now.

“I’ve taken every opportunity. Anybody that wanted to stop me could’ve jumped in my way and knocked me out and took care of business. That’s how I do things. It kind of shook me to my core when I came out the ring and everybody’s standpoint was, ‘He’s a cheater.’ It kind of threw me off a bit.”

Greg Hardy will be facing Dmitrii Smoliakov in the co-main event of UFC on ESPN 3 on April 27, 2019 from the BB&T Center in Sunrise Florida and will have an opportunity, once again, for a fresh start.