Dan Hardy: Why a Fight with UFC Legend Matt Hughes Does Not Help Him

Dan Hardy's recent calling out of Matt Hughes will do little to further the Brit's career if the fight should actually come to pass. 

How could beating a legend not further his career, you ask? 

If Hardy beats Hughes, some fans of "The Outlaw" will proclaim that Hardy's Achilles heel—wrestling—is no longer because he beat a wrestler. 

But more cynical MMA viewers will say that Hardy didn't show anything in victory because he beat a has-been; legend is another word for old.

And if Hardy actually loses to Hughes?

It'll be Hardy's fifth straight loss in the UFC and he'll be forever discredited in the minds of MMA fans across the world (except for a loyal sect of fanatical British people). 

This fight is therefore a useless one for Hardy (and an even more useless one for Hughes).

If Hardy wins, some fans, and the UFC marketing department, might trumpet the victory from the green hills of England as if it were the second coming of Christ. But the grumblings would be that the victory was meaningless because Hardy was supposed to win the fight. 

If Hughes manages to best Hardy, the mohawk-laden fighter will go down in infamy as a fighter who epitomized everything that was wrong with British MMA. 

No matter what, the majority of fans will take these lines on the topic: Hardy wins, he beat a has-been bum. Hardy loses, he is not even a has been, he's a never-was.

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