O2 ARENA, LONDON – Three years and four days after Veronica Hardy last fought, husband Dan watched on proudly as the flyweight assessed his influence on her MMA comeback, in the aftermath of a tactically-astute victory over Juliana Miller at UFC 286.
Taking on The Ultimate Fighter winner Miller on the undercard of Leon Edwards and Kamaru Usman’s title fight at the O2 Arena, Hardy stayed out of trouble and pounced judiciously on opportunities to leave her opponent with a lump on her head and a surprise unanimous decision defeat, prevailing 30-27 on all three scorecards.
“When you’re married to Dan Hardy, he analyses everything, right?” Hardy said afterwards while her spouse, who challenged Georges St-Pierre for the welterweight title in 2010 among his 10 UFC fights, smiled sweetly in the wings.
“He watched a lot of her grappling and her combat Jiu-Jitsu is phenomenal. We saw it as an opportunity, when she goes for something, to maintain calm, maintain a good position and strike, because you’ll find a lot of good positions there.
“You’ve got Dan Hardy, who’s the best analyst in the world, telling you ‘you can do it, you can do great things in this division’. You’ve got to give him respect for the man that he is and I’m very grateful to have had him here.”
A victory…
