Heather “The Heat” Hardy is a boxer’s boxer, so when she announced her retirement from the sport on Instagram, one knew just how serious things were.

A Momentous Start

From the moment she picked herself up off the canvas in August 2012 in the first round of her first professional fight, Heather Hardy knew nothing was going to stop her from winning. Her performance from that moment on against opponent Mikayla Nebel was so commanding, promoter Lou DiBella signed her to a multi-fight promotional contract, a first among many in the arc of Hardy’s career.

By January 2013, however, Hardy felt the struggles and inequities of being a professional female boxer, “I am still making considerably less than my male counterparts and doing the exact same job.”[i]

Her next big milestone in a career of milestones was her showdown with Shelly “Shelito’s Way” Vincent on August 21, 2016-the same day Claressa Shields was slated to defend her Gold medal status at the 2016 Rio Games.

The Hardy-Vincent fight was on a Premier Boxing Champion’s (PBC) fight card with Errol Spence Jr. battling Leonard Bundu in the main event. In front of a sold out crowd, however, clamoring to see their “main event,” the Hardy-Vincent showdown for the WBC Women’s International Feather title was to be the fight of the night. The venue also told the story. Set at the Ford Amphitheater in Coney Island, the covered outdoor theater was seemingly split into two camps and two camps only: the crowds of ticket holders who’d come out for Hardy and the folks who’d traveled down from Connecticut and Rhode Island in droves for Shelly Vincent.

What made the evening unique, is the Hardy-Vincent title bout was slated to be broadcast on the USA NBC Sports Network, the first time PBC broadcast a women’s boxing fight, albeit broadcast on online and not on cable.

Hardy came out the victor in that fight, but speaking of her win she acknowledged the journey of being a female in boxing.

“I hope it makes people know that we’re out here, there’s so many of us … there is a sea of female talent,” and taking a beat she said, “Tonight we had Claressa Shields become the very first, ever, Olympic American boxer … to be two-time Gold medalist.”

Shields for her part writing in the forward for the upcoming book, The Promise of Women’s Boxing: A Momentous New Era for the Sweet Science, stated:

I got a text from Heather Hardy who had just fought Shelly Vincent in Brooklyn and had won. “Congratulations on your victory,” she said. “You are doing so much for women’s boxing.” And then she let me know that her fight, the same day as my second gold medal, also made history. “We were broadcast on the NBC Sports Network!” I took it as a sign. “If she can do it,” I thought to myself, “then I can, too.”

In the midst of this, Hardy was the first female boxer to compete at the Barclay’s Center arena in Brooklyn, and as ever a true sister of the ring, she brought Amanda Serrano along in her wake as the second woman to compete there. Those singular honors, however, did not mean that she got the paychecks to match or the pride of place on bout sheets that would include television exposure. Ever the pitch woman, Hardy sold tickets up until the day of the fight, dragging herself to Gleason’s Gym to make certain that she fulfilled every ticket obligation. And every fight was a boon for the promoters because she always sold out her allotment and more, the galling part was there were fights when she was moved to the position of opening bout before her fans even had a chance to enter the arena, having otherwise been promised a later placement.

And as for camp, that meant the extra hours of the day in between training her clients, getting Annie breakfasted and dressed for school, and so on. Camp was showing up before her clients started for her warm-up and sparring — at 7:00 AM. Then the run home to get Annie ready, then the run back to Gleason’s for more clients, work outs on the pads and heavy bag, more sparring, more clients, a run over the Brooklyn Bridge and back, time for cardio, then back to Annie after school, and the evening rush of clients to train back at Gleason’s Gym. It’s exhausting just thinking about it, never mind living it.

And still no decent paydays. She fought for every promotion till it seemed impossible and then she pivoted to MMA for a better payday — and as she put it, they at least sent a car to take her to Madison Square Garden for her fight there. MMA though is another whole world of physical hurt and while the warrior in her took it on, the physical toll was measurable and scary after her second contest in Bellator185.

World Title

If ever there were belts given for perseverance, Hardy has proven herself undisputed. Her true fight for a world title came in 2018 as only the second female bout to be shown on an HBO show, something that only happened because of her dogged perseverance (there’s that word again) in pursing HBO executive Peter Nelson.

As Hardy put it, “They were announcing it as a triple header, and yeah, I was happy to be on the show, boxing at the Garden, doing the rematch … [but] I was really annoyed that they were announcing it. Like, how dare you announce it as a triple header, knowing that me and Shelly are going to sell out the little Hulu Theater, and for weeks I mean, I was tweeting HBO and articles, and one night … I was so mad … I called [HBO’s] Peter Nelson and left a message…”

The gist was to complain about not being on the broadcast portion of the card and as Hardy later related, her promoter Lou DiBella called her the next morning asking if she’d called him. Hardy told him that she had, but only after taking a gulp and expecting an explosive reaction. Letting the silence permeate the air, DiBella finally broke it saying, “it … worked.” Peter Nelson had agreed to broadcast the HardyVincent2 fight, adding that there was no money in the budget for it, but that he’d do it anyway.

The fight was also a twenty thousand dollar pay day—a career high in boxing for Hardy, but still nothing more than a break-even night with fully “30% going to the corner, off the bat,” plus all the other expenses and lost revenue for working less during camp. She added, “I understood the business side of how to make money in this industry,” by working hard to market herself, but that savvy still wasn’t translating into a six-figure fee for fighting for a title, no matter how much she and Vincent brought to the gate in ticket sales.[2]

The win was brilliant — and the loss to Amanda Serrano the Fall of 2019 was a heartbreak, but the “that’s boxing” mantra and the sisterhood between them stayed in focus even as Hardy continued to champion the need for greater equity for women in the sport across the board from money, to opportunity, to visibility and everything in between.

With COVID, Hardy’s world fell apart again. The margins of living paycheck to paycheck were even scarier. With school fees for her daughter and the prospect of college to come the challenge of finding the money for it was even more daunting. And there was also health to consider. It was harder and harder to come down to 126 pounds, not to mention the physical effects of broken noses, broken ribs, broken hands, and headaches from multiple concussions. When she finally got back into the ring in the spring of 2021 for a six-rounder against Jessica Camara in the middle of nowhere Tennessee, it felt as if it had all fallen away — sitting in a miserable venue and wondering whether if it was worth it anymore.

Perseverance willed out, however, as she began working with her old mentor, Hector Roca, whom she affectionately called, Papa. She also teamed up with Boxing Insider’s Larry Goldberg to put on his first promotion at the Sony Theater, and feeling ready mentally and physically to give it one more go, won a unanimous decision six-rounder against Calista Salida. 

For her next outing under the Boxing Insider banner, she fought an eight-rounder. By then, Roca had passed away after a difficult illness, and dedicating her fight to him, Hardy felt that he sat on her shoulder willing her to greatness. She did not disappoint, winning a mixed decision against Taynna Cardosa.

With that win in her pocket, and having reached the age of 40, Hardy was intent on one more try at the brass ring. This time she called on Amanda Serrano, who having won the undisputed mantle in her ten-round slug fest with Erika Cruz in early February, was able to call her own shots and having postponed Taylor-Serrano 2 due to her own injury, was more than happy to give her sister in boxing, Hardy a shot. She also gave Hardy the one pay day in her life that she deserved. A six-figure check that would pay off the back bills and loans that had accumulated through the very lean COVID years.

What Hardy promised was to put herself on the line in the center of the ring–not to mention the weeks and weeks of hard sparring to prepare for Serrano whose power in the ring hurts her male sparring partners, never mind her opponents.  And Hardy did give it her all, but also took a battering that left her unable to see out of one eye.

Undaunted, Hardy felt she still had more to give, but for all the promise of the sport that the sold out Taylor-Serrano battle had brought from the year before, women in boxing in the USA were finding it difficult to get on cards. When it came to Hardy who was on the back side of her career it was getting even more difficult, with occasional offers for little money with impossible time scales to get down in weight. Back at the training grind and with still more bills to pay it all seemed impossible, but she agreed to try her hand at a bare knuckle boxing contest against the leading champion of BKFC, Christine Ferea. The training, however, was not going well, and when she developed more issues seeing out of her eye, it became clear that something was drastically wrong.

For those of us who know Heat, the sense of loss for her is overwhelming.

Boxing has been her life and the thing about being a prize fighter is it is hard to picture a life without it. And yet, having bravely stepped forward into the unknowns of a life outside of the ring, if past is prologue, she will win in life with the same unfettered brilliance she has given all of us since she first passed through the ropes all those years ago.

Osu!

 

 

 

[i] “Heather Hardy Interview ahead of her January 23^rd Fight at BB Kings!” Girlboxing.org, January 18, 2013.

[2] Heather Hardy, Interview with Malissa Smith, September 30, 2022. [Excerpt from Chapter 5, The Promise of Women’s Boxing: A Momentous New Era for the Sweet Science.]