By Thomas Gerbasi
Heather Hardy earned her recent vacation in Jamaica. If only for her work rate in a May win over Noemi Bosques, “The Heat” deserved some time away from her native Brooklyn. But winning that fight over her toughest foe to date to improve to 13-0 with 1 NC as a pro made the time away that much sweeter.
“It was the most satisfying feeling in the world,” Hardy said a day after returning to the daily grind of training and teaching at Gleason’s Gym. Vacations have been few and far between for the 33-year-old, both literally and figuratively, as she’s been on a constant treadmill of trials and tribulations for most of her life.
She doesn’t complain about what she’s been through, but she isn’t ashamed of talking about it either. And even if you didn’t know her story, when you see her fight or even hear her talk, you know that what she does for a living isn’t about a paycheck or the glory. It’s almost as if each punch thrown and each victory earned is one more day of good things on the way for her and her 10-year-old daughter.
“I fight like I don’t want to lose, so I do whatever it takes to win,” she said. “Sometimes I can sit back and box. I’ve had a couple wins where I was able to take my time and just control the pace with a jab, and there are some times when I feel like I’ve gotta put it all on the table, be right in your face and wear you down. It’s how I won all my amateur fights – I broke these girls and I only had three or four rounds to do it, and I kept that pace up the whole time. I carried that to my pro career, and I can do it for ten if I have to.”
She had eight rounds to vanquish Florida’s Bosques, whose only previous losses had been to Nydia Feliciano and Kenia Enriquez, and she did it by putting a relentless pace on her opponent for all eight rounds. The judges saw it as a split decision for Hardy, but that’s being generous to Bosques, who got in some flush counters over the course of the night but didn’t have enough room to be consistent against the smothering attack of the hometown favorite fighting in Barclays Center. Ask Hardy where it all comes from, and she’s quick to deflect the praise elsewhere before giving the real source.
“I have a great strength and conditioning coach, Tony Ricci, but aside from that, it’s the will to win,” she said. “When you’re in there and fighting for your life, you don’t get tired. It’s not even a physical thing. The physical stuff goes out the window and my will to win takes over.”
That will was born in the Gerritsen Beach section of Brooklyn. To outsiders, it would be called a “blue collar enclave,” to those in it, the neighborhood is one where everyone looks out for one another but everyone also knows everyone’s business. That’s a blessing and a curse, and you learn that early on. Hardy didn’t have it easy growing up, but adulthood was worse, with a divorce, the loss of an apartment due to fire and Hurricane Sandy all taking shots at her over the years. Boxing was the savior, as it is for so many in the sport.
“Boxing was a real positive outlet for me after everything happened to me, from being homeless, to going through the divorce, to being sexually assaulted as a kid, and I showed that I can still stand on two feet and feel like a strong, independent, single working mom,” Hardy said.
Fourteen pro wins later and Hardy isn’t just on her way up the 122-pound ladder, but she’s become perhaps the most visible female boxer in the United States. She’s a ticket seller in New York and in the media capital of the world, her story has captivated people far beyond the boxing world.
“I kind of have the American story,” she said. “I came up from nothing. My parents had nothing, I was taking care of my brother and sister most of my life, and now I’m living in DUMBO (a neighborhood in Brooklyn), a divorced single mom. I hate to sound a certain way, but I think people are attracted to me, and because of that attraction they become interested in boxing and what I do.”
Perhaps more accurately, they can relate to someone whose struggle mirrors theirs, and seeing that someone come out of the darkness to be successful gives a certain hope. It’s why Hardy is expected to start doing speaking engagements in the near future to tell her story to folks who wouldn’t know the first thing about the sweet science.
“It’s just to tell my story of resilience and to motivate people,” she said, and to her, reaching those who once stood where she did may be more important than any victory in the ring.
“For me to reach out to someone who might be going through a divorce, feeling like she doesn’t want to leave her husband because she doesn’t think she’ll survive, or to a kid, it’s because I’ve been there,” Hardy said. “But whether it’s boxing or school or anything else in the world, you’ve got to just push on through. Things will be all right. So if I can show someone, look, I did it, I didn’t have money, I didn’t have a huge support system, I did it all by myself. If I did it with nothing more than a desire to succeed, you can do it. And if I can help one person, I feel like I did my job.”
That doesn’t mean it’s easy, so every time she has to bring up the darkest moments of her life to strangers, it’s like opening old wounds.
“It really is difficult, and I spend a lot of time - and my coach (Devon Cormack) will tell you this - really crying in my apartment, like ‘I don’t want to do this.’ But then I think of all the positive things that come out of it. I never looked at my life through someone else’s eyes and looked at how I made it past what I’ve gone through, and was able to turn it into a positive thing.”
Couple the all-action fight style and the compelling back story, and if Hardy was a man, she would be celebrated on premium cable or Pay-Per-View on a regular basis. For women, that’s not the case, and while unfortunate, Hardy’s promoter, Lou DiBella, believes the time may be right to shake up the ol’ boys’ club.
“I’m hoping that before 2015 is over that there will be a Heather Hardy fight on television,” DiBella said. “I think the time is right. The quality of women’s boxing is good enough and the time is right for some quality matchups on TV, and that’s something I’m working really hard on. There are a lot of deserving women, and I think Heather is one of them, and the fan base that she has makes sense for her to be one of the featured women on a women’s boxing card. It’s definitely a cause I’m trying to advance this year.”
Is Hardy ready? The fighter’s answer is what you expect, but she is also quick with a jab at those who questioned whether she was just a media creation or a legit contender.
“I definitely feel like I made more of an impact with the boxing community (with the Bosques fight) and proved that I can step up a little bit and fight a little bit,” she laughs. “I’m ready to keep moving up. I felt really good and I felt really confident with my abilities in the ring, and I know that I still have a long ways to go, but I’d say I’m in good shape to go toe-to-toe with around 95 to 96 percent of the girls in my weight class right now.”
Fightin’ words indeed, but that’s precisely what Heather Hardy is, a fighter. So ask her when she’s ready for the top of the heap at 122 pounds, and she’ll say she was ready yesterday.
“I’m a big, dumb fighter and I felt like I’ve been ready forever because I have that kind of attitude,” she said. “When I go in there, I don’t give a s**t who you are, how good you are, how long you’ve been fightin’; you’re gonna show me you can do it for 12 rounds. So it’s really up to Lou and Devon and I mean that from the bottom of my heart. Not to be any kind of way, but I feel like I can go in there and survive and fight my ass off with anyone. I really do.”
You believe her too, but more importantly, she believes it as well, something she was reminded of recently while riding on the train with her daughter.
“I was thinking, ‘I can’t believe this is my life right now.’ Someone came up to me and said ‘You’re the fighter, right?’
“Oh my God, I am.”