Joe Rogan looks back at Greg Hardy’s UFC debut, ‘It was a joke’

It came and went just like that. The UFC’s controversial acquisition in Greg Hardy made his promotional debut on January 19 when he suffered his first career loss by way of disqualification to Allen Crowder.

Hardy would land a blatantly illegal knee to a downed Crowder that prevented him from continuing the contest.

If Hardy in the UFC alone wasn’t controversial enough, on top of that, he got a co-main event slot on the same card as recent domestic violence victim Rachael Ostovich and then lost in controversial fashion.

On his recent Joe Rogan Experience Fight Companion podcast for Bellator 214 this past Saturday, UFC commentator Joe Rogan shared his thoughts on Hardy and inexperienced MMA athletes from other sports getting such big spotlights for their first fights in the sport.

“Well, how’d that go?” Rogan rhetorically asked Brendan Schaub when mentioning Hardy’s UFC debut. “How’d that work out? Terrible. It was a joke. It was a joke.

“I knew that [Hardy] was fading quick. I was like, ‘he’s fading. I don’t like the way he’s stepping, he looks exhausted, he tired out quick,’ Then he hit that guy with the illegal knee.”

Hardy’s bout with Crowder was the fourth of his professional career and the first of his seven overall that went past 1:36 of the first round as it would end at 2:28 of round two.

Despite the inexperience that was on display in the co-main event for the UFC’s debut on ESPN, UFC President Dana White did not seem bothered by how Greg Hardy looked and said that the former NFL defensive end will, of course, be getting another shot in the organization.

Despite the fact that we’ve seen more and more stars from other sports enter into MMA over the recent years, it never stops promoters from giving them chances on bigger stages than others who would have to work their ways up. But should it?

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 1/28/2019