UFC: Five Reasons Dan Hardy Will Not Be The UFC Welterweight Champion

Travel

Dan Hardy is one of the stars of the emerging English MMA scene, a market the UFC has coveted for a few years now.

Whenever the UFC travels to Great Britain, they stack their cards with English fighters to ensure maximum fan turnout; Dan Hardy got his original UFC shot on such a card.

Before that, Hardy fought in several English-based promotions, the result being that massive majority of Hardy's fights have been in the U.K.

In every UFC fight, Hardy was pitted against a non-European fighter, making his fight an "England against World"-type match and making him the instant fan favorite of the match.

Much like George Sotiropoulos in Sydney, Hardy was cheered on heartily by his countrymen in all of his matches. Now he must travel to the States, lose the crowd, and hometown boost.

I find it hard to believe that Hardy will get a warm welcome from UFC fans and the horde of Canadians that will travel down to see their champion defend his belt.

I will be very interested to see Hardy's reaction to this additional factor.

Power Outage?

Since this fight has been announced, many declared Dan Hardy having a "Puncher's Chance" mainly because of Georges St Peirre's shocking 2007 TKO loss to the heavy-handed Matt Serra. Hardy is described as a knockout artist and 11 of his 23 wins have come by way of (T)KO.

But how much power does Hardy really have?

The vast majority of Hardy's fights are against English club fighters and it didn't take too long to find a KO victim of Hardy like Chad Reiner, whose first loss in MMA was a KO loss to Dustin Hazlett.

Yes, the man was knocked out by Dustin McLovin Hazlett.

In the UFC Hardy's lone KO victory, comes over Rory Markham, whose five MMA losses have come via the KO.

And then there are the spilt decisions over fighters like Marcus Davis and Akihiro Gono . Tough fighters are really guys a legit title contender should at least beat convincingly.

It begins to prompt the question that if KO is really the only way Hardy can beat GSP, how realistic is that possibility if he does connect with GSP?

The Knee Tap

The Knee Tap is GSP's favorite takedown while in the clinch, but really this section deals with Hardy's lack of wrestling in general.

Hardy has shown a weak takedown defense across his career and with fights against accomplished wrestlers, it is very likely that GSP will shine a very bright light on this hole in their meeting.

GSP's last defense came against the very tough striker Thiago Alves who paired powerful Muay Thai with a superb takedown defense. GSP was able to take the fight to the ground at will.

Hardy simply seems to be a less powerful, longer version of Alves but without the takedown defense, there really is no reason that Hardy shouldn't spend the vast majority of this fight on his back.

On The Mat

On your back with GSP on top of you is never a good position to be in, but when your ground experience is as limited as Dan Hardy's, it is a nightmare.

GSP has twice neutralized the legendary guard of B.J. Penn and also submitted the great Matt Hughes.

Hardy has been working hard on his Jiu Jitsu at 10th Planet with Eddie Bravo, but a year of training hardly puts him at the level GSP has reached. GSP is not impossible to out grapple, but recently it has taken an at-his-peak Matt Hughes or a trip to ADCCs to make GSP tap out.

Bravo is a good coach but I find it hard to believe that Hardy is that level of grappler after just a year of training.

The Fast Track

The UFC makes a point to test all of its fighters, always giving them at the very least, competitive matchups.

Dan Hardy was no exception.

He was given tough matchups for a fighter to have in his first few matches in the UFC: Gono, Davis and Swick are not cupcakes and are tough competitors. But for Hardy to jump straight from them to a title shot suggests that Hardy was placed on an express line partly because there is nobody else to face GSP.

It can be argued that Hardy has yet to face a true Top 10 Welterweight and the welterweights he has faced, he has not beaten in a convincingly enough manner to justify jumping over the Top 10 all together, straight to the title.

It's hard to see Hardy get a title shot while a guy like Paulo Thiago has to the AKA gauntlet.