Former UFC commentator Dan Hardy recently revealed that he was disappointed due to some incidents that transpired while he was working as a commentator in the promotion under Dana White.
Hardy, who was also a former UFC welterweight title challenger, had conflicted feelings during his final days as an employee for the promotion. Hardy was released from his duties as commentator in early last year following a reported disagreement with a female employee during the promotion’s run of events in Abu Dhabi that same year.
Dan Hardy claims Dana White staged a reaction
In a recent interview with the “Freedom Pact” podcast, Hardy said he “certainly could’ve acted differently” in dealing with the circumstance, but it doesn’t change the uneasy feelings he has toward the promotion. In one of the examples Hardy listed, he claimed the UFC and president Dana White staged a video in which White was shown expressing concern that Calvin Kattar could’ve died as a result of damage in his loss against Max Holloway in January 2021.
“This is another good example of the nonsense, the posturing, the propaganda – that last fight that I called was Max Holloway vs. Calvin Kattar,” Hardy said.
“… (It was) the first time combat sports had been on ABC in 20-something years. And then going into the fifth round, and you have one guy that’s being beaten senseless by another fighter, right? Now, there is no reason why that fight shouldn’t have been stopped at the end of the fourth round. No discredit to Calvin Kattar, but he didn’t earn anything by taking that fifth-round beating.
But what we did see was that clip coming out of Dana talking to Hunter (Campbell) and being like, ‘Hey, we need to make sure he goes straight to a doctor after that.’ And it looks like, ‘Hey, they just caught this on camera across the arena.’ The dude was mic’d up. The receiver of the microphone was attached to the camera that was filming him from across the other side of the arena. That whole thing was staged to protect the UFC. And I watched that, and I’m like, ‘That’s just dirty.’ Actually do something to protect the fighter. Don’t do something to protect the sport or the company if the fighter gets damaged.”
A few months prior to the Holloway vs. Kattar fight, Hardy was in a confrontation with referee Herb Dean for not stopping the Francisco Trinaldo vs. Jai Herbert lightweight fight sooner – which White was critical of and said Hardy was out of place to confront the referee.
