Dan Hardy on training in The Batcave with ‘beast’ Lorenzo Fertitta
Stephie “Crooklyn” Daniels sat down with Dan Hardy on behalf of BloodyElbow and conducted one of the best interviews in…
Stephie “Crooklyn” Daniels sat down with Dan Hardy on behalf of BloodyElbow and conducted one of the best interviews in recent memory. Excerpts appear below.
Occasionally a guy gets cut by the UFC after a single loss. Being released after two losses is petty normal. Three losses and you are done. Dan Hardy, because he brings it every moment of every fight, has lost four in a row, and remains with the organization.
On May 26, 2012 at UFC 146 Hardy faces Duane “Bang” Ludwig, and discusses his fight preparation.
Crooklyn closes the piece with the news that The East Lake Pet Orphanage in Dallas, Texas has named Dan the recipient of it’s annual “Kramer Award”, given in outstanding recognition for animal welfare activism. Hardy’s fiancee supplied Crooklyn with several images of cats he’s rescued recently.
Stephie “Crooklyn” Daniels: Tell me about what led to you “getting your anger back”
Dan Hardy: Before I was signed with the UFC, I was pissed off because I wanted to be in the UFC, and I thought I should be in the UFC … every day I was pissed off. That was what was getting me in the gym and making me work.
When I joined the UFC, those first four fights made me feel like I’d achieved what I set out to do. That was before I’d reassessed and thought to make a run at the belt. That title fight, and everything that came with it, I had never experienced that before. It was all just kind of thrown at me, and that was exhausting. It kind of took all the fun out of it for me.
Then I went into the Condit fight with too much confidence. I had no respect for the guy, and I paid for it.
I’m in a position where I won my first four fights, and now I’ve lost my last four fights, and no one thinks I should be in the UFC, so I’m kind of back to where I was before I signed with them.
Now I’ve got to prove to people that I belong in the UFC, and I’m pissed off that people don’t think that I belong there. I want to win this fight in a big way, and show everyone that I belong. I wake up angry and I go to bed angry, and that’s the way I was before. Now that I have that back, I really feel like I can go on a tear. I can do a lot of damage in the division. I could upset some people in the division.
SCD: What are the three, primary gyms that you train at (in Las Vegas)?
DH: I train with Frank Mir and his guys at Suffer. It’s a small gym with a great group of guys. I also train at Robert Drysdale’s gym and work with his guys. The last one is the secret gym up at Redrock. We call it the Batcave.
SD: Who trains at the secret gym?
DH: Well, this morning it was myself, Frank Mir, Forrest Griffin, and Lorenzo Fertitta.
SD: What’s it like, training with Lorenzo?
DH: The guy is a beast. I say this in all honesty. If there was a real life Batman, Lorenzo Fertitta is that guy. He’s got everything that Batman has. If we ever had a masked avenger running around Vegas, I’d put money on it being Lorenzo. He’s in the gym all the time, and he’s in great shape. He’s lifting every day, he’s hitting pads. I tell you what, I’m glad he’s not in my weight class.
SCD: You’ve mentioned that you’ve had bad runs with shady managers. Have you found a management team that works to serve your needs in a fashion that you trust?
DH: I’ve had a lot of experiences with bad management. I have huge trust issues with handing control over to someone.
The problem is, this sport is still very much in it’s infancy. You get a lot of people that think they can put a suit on and make some phone calls, but it’s so much more than that.
So many managers are in it just for themselves. You’ve got to be able to trust the guy that’s managing you. You’ve got to trust them like a friend, and if you can’t, then they’re the wrong guy.
People tend to want to go with these mouthy managers that go in demanding twice as much money as their fighter should be making, and they might make a little money in the short term, but the fighters get a bad reputation, and then the managers get a bad reputation. Nobody wants to work with them.
I’m not going to name names, but there are two managers in the industry today that I use as tools when dealing with sponsors. I just tell them, ‘Look, you can either deal with me and be fair, or I can sign with one of these dickhead managers, and you can deal with one of them.’ Having somebody out there demanding a few extra dollars, but being hard-headed and being an asshole isn’t really helping anybody. I would rather have a good relationship with my sponsors. If they’re dealing with an a—— manager, then they’re going to have that same opinion of me, and I don’t want that. The guys I’ve had dealings with are just not good people. They’re not interested in or supportive of their athletes. All they want is to say that they’re the manager of that athlete.
Honestly, I can’t name any good managers, apart from the guys I’m working with (Spiked Athlete Management)