Amanda Serrano and Heather Hardy Show The World What Women's Boxing, At Its Best, Is All About

 

Last night’s Undisputed featherweight title fight with Amanda Serrano and Heather Hardy in opposing corners was like something off a movie screen, carrying a personal significance to both women that far outweighed the tallies on the judges’ scorecards. 

Many supposed pundits didn’t give Heather Hardy a snowballs’ chance in hell of finishing the fight on her feet, or even hearing the bell for round two, and urged her corner to throw in the towel late in the bout. Those people may know boxing on a more than elementary level, but they don’t know the first thing about Heather Hardy. To the unbelievers she offered a succinct and sincere “Fuck yourself” this morning on social media. 

Watching the uplifting post-fight scene play out between Hardy and Serrano in the center of the ring made me think of the ending to the first Rocky movie where the theme music begins to swell and a bloodied and battered Balboa is frantically beckoning for Adrian, drowning out the verdict of his one in a million challenge against Apollo Creed which is being read by the ring announcer. 

Whether Rocky won or lost was purely incidental, the result something that needed to be recorded as an academic formality. What mattered was that he went the distance with the best in boxing and proved his worth to the world. And to himself. The same held true for Heather Hardy. Despite the odds, she has never been counted out in the ring. Nor in life. Hardy and Serrano have been through a lot, together as well as individually, and their shared struggles all came full circle in Dallas.   

“I got very, very lucky where I was able to come spar with her, show her that I’m tough, I want to learn, I just want to get better. So to be able to have her grab my hand and say come on Heat, let me help you because I know what you went through, it just means everything,” Hardy said with her arm around her friend Amanda after the two had just spent twenty minutes beating the daylights out of one another. 

“I gave everything I had today. I gave everything for three months. Everything,” exclaimed Heather, the tears she had been choking back coming forth in a torrent not unlike the blood that had coursed down her face during the last two rounds of the fight, the fans displaying their appreciation both for Hardy’s gutsy resilience and raw emotion with loud, sustained cheers. “I have no excuses,” she cried, emptying herself out soulfully in the same passionate manner with which she had just exerted herself physically. “That was everything.”

Humble and genuine as boxers come, Amanda Serrano responded to Heather’s outpouring of vulnerable gratitude with heartfelt sentiments of her own. “This is why we need to come together as female boxers and work together,” said Serrano, who personally saw to it that Hardy was given this massive opportunity to fight for her title and take home the first six-figure payday of her eleven-year career. “Don’t degrade each other. Let’s work together and make this beautiful sport of women’s boxing grow together.” 

This sequel to their 2019 fight more or less followed the same script. Little in the way of unexpected surprises and no twist ending. In no way did this make it any less entertaining. Serrano came out of the gate throwing heavy leather, unleashing merciless body blows and hooking with both hands, punches that had Heather hurt within the first thirty seconds and bleeding by the end of round one. 

Hardy maintained the mental wherewithal to fight her way off the ropes so as not to become a sitting duck for Amanda’s vast array of power punches, but the champion would stalk her prey and cut off the ring, not permitting Heather the benefit of time to hit the reset button between exchanges.

By the end of the third round, Hardy was not only still standing but beginning to fire back with a renewed sense of confidence, landing a succession of nice right hooks and nodding her head in Serrano’s direction as if to say, ‘I’m here for a fight, so let’s fight.’ Obliging this unspoken request, Amanda closed out the stanza with a trio of head-snapping right hands, two crosses and a hook. 

In round four, Serrano added to her already impressive punch selection by throwing left uppercuts into the mix, two of which hit their mark with Hardy backed against the ring strands. True to her leave-nothing-behind personality and work ethic, Hardy exhibited no resistance to standing and trading with the heavy-handed champion when a lesser adversary might have chosen to duck and cover if not run for the hills or lie down and accept their inevitable fate. 

In fact, Heather had her best rounds as the bout progressed past the halfway mark despite the cumulative punishment she was sustaining. At the end of each one hundred and twenty second-long frame, the two gunslingers would touch gloves or bump elbows as they crossed paths on the way back to their respective corners in a show of friendship and mutual respect.

Prior to round nine, the ringside physician consulted with a banged-up but battle-ready Hardy before he would give the go-ahead for the fight to proceed. Not only did she answer the questions to his satisfaction, the feisty Brooklynite returned to action with an incredulous smile and ‘Do you believe this shit?’ kind of shrug. 

Amanda dispelled whatever lingering notion any doubting naysayer might have had that she was taking it easy on her friend by bringing the fight directly to Hardy at the commencement of the penultimate round, looking like she was intent on getting the stoppage. Serrano being one of the best finishers in women’s boxing notwithstanding, Heather being Heather, a premature end to the bout was highly unlikely. 

But not so fast. With twenty seconds remaining in the ninth, Hardy was again summoned to visit with the ringside doctor, this time to check the severity of a cut on her hairline caused by an accidental clash of heads. After a few anxious moments, Heather was declared fit to fight. This revelation was not exactly worthy of a front page headline to Hardy, who beat her chest in King Kong-style defiance before resuming hostilities with Serrano as the crowd roared its approval. Amanda grinned from ear to ear, pounding both gloves against Hardy’s, and they picked up right where they left off.

Heather and Amanda embraced at center ring before the tenth and final round when it was again time to begin bashing each other’s faces, slugging away toe to toe with the crowd on its feet as if the decision was somehow in question. What couldn’t be questioned was Hardy’s fortitude and tenacity which, more than just muscle memory and a granite chin, kept her vertical even when she was driven back into the corner on wobbly legs after three straight lefts from Serrano. 

‘The Heat’ refused to be extinguished and came out swinging. Serrano did too, however, nailing Hardy with another left hook during the final exchange which brought the house down with a well-deserved standing ovation for the two warriors who shared one more hug, this one drenched in blood, sweat, and tears, after time expired and Heather had absorbed 278 punches. 

Their sisterhood springs eternal, the source of which lies at a place unseen by most. The secret point of origin where bonds are formed not merely of gender and geography but common life experience in the way of professional struggles and personal sacrifices carried out in the name of conjuring what Morgan Freeman’s character Scrap Iron Dupris in Million Dollar Baby calls “the magic of risking everything for a dream nobody sees but you.”

Amanda Serrano and Heather Hardy Renew Their Acquaintance with an Undisputed Showdown in Dallas

Four years ago, they were fellow Brooklynites, world champions, sparring partners, stablemates, and friends who said they had no interest in an actual punch-up with one another despite public demand, especially among New York fight fans. But boxing is a funny thing, nothing if not unpredictable, and this Saturday Amanda Serrano and Heather Hardy square off for the second time. This time with the Undisputed featherweight title on the line.   

Their September 13, 2019 scuffle was a pivotal turning point for both women, their trajectories diverging in dramatic fashion after the final bell. 

Hardy, the 22-0 WBO world featherweight champion, exhibited every bit of her trademark grit and tenacity in weathering a hellish first round onslaught but lost her belt and her undefeated record in one night. Serrano, already a seven-division world champion, continued her seven-year win streak by reclaiming the very title she had vacated in pursuit of another three years earlier, won next by her sister Cindy to keep the WBO belt in the family until she too relinquished it to open the door for Hardy’s reign which briefly interrupted the Serrano’s shared supremacy.    

Subsequently, Hardy would produce mixed results through her experimentation inside the MMA octagon before returning to boxing and moving up to lightweight, flooring Jessica Camara in the first round a year and a half after her defeat to Serrano but dropping a unanimous decision to the Canadian who earned a shot at then-WBA/WBO/IBO champion Kali Reis. A wrist injury forced Heather to pull out of a scheduled bout opposite a rebounding Terri Harper, and has since struggled to tough out victories over seasoned veteran Calista Silgado and relative newcomer Taynna Cardoso in her last two fights, six and eight rounders respectively. These bouts both occurred at the intimately-sized Sony Hall theater in Times Square whereas the now 41-year-old Hardy, who ten years ago became the first female signed to a long-term contract by Lou DiBella, was once the regularly featured attraction and major ticket seller at the Barclays Center.  

Meanwhile, Serrano was already being mentioned in the same breath as Katie Taylor as pound for pound ring rivals, her win over Heather being the second of a three-fight co-promotional deal between Lou DiBella and Eddie Hearn which was meant to culminate in a showdown between the Puerto Rican southpaw and the Bray Bomber. It took three years of tense negotiating to finally make it happen, but Katie and Amanda would eventually headline a sold-out Madison Square Garden last April. 

By this time, Serrano was awarded the WBC featherweight title stripped from Jelena Mrdjenovich, who failed to consent to a mandated unification fight against Amanda, and added the vacant IBO strap to her growing collection when she stopped Daniela Bermudez with a body shot in March 2021. Following her split decision loss to Katie Taylor, Serrano turned down an immediate rematch to become Undisputed at 126 pounds, which she did by defeating IBF titleholder Sarah Mahfoud and WBA champion Erika Cruz in back-to-back outings.  

An even more high-stakes Undisputed vs. Undisputed grudge match between Serrano and Taylor was announced in the Hulu Theatre ring right after Amanda’s bloody victory over Cruz, to have taken place in Dublin on May 20 but for an untimely injury which forced Serrano to withdraw. She was replaced by Chantelle Cameron, and we all know how that played out. However, with Katie’s lightweight crown still intact, Amanda insists that conversations are being had regarding their eagerly-awaited rematch, the result of Taylor/Cameron 2 notwithstanding. Taylor’s focus for the time being on avenging her first and only professional loss to Cameron left a recuperated Serrano with a void on her calendar in need of filling. 

Amanda’s four-year long Undisputed whistle stop tour began by disembarking at Madison Square Garden’s Hulu Theatre to take away the WBO belt that belonged to her friend Heather. No hard feelings. Strictly business. Hardy was wise to what was going on. She could see the writing on the wall when the contract was signed. The implication that, even as the reigning and defending champion, she was being offered up as a sacrificial lamb, a steppingstone to initiate Serrano’s ascendance toward the featherweight throne. Which only gave her all the more reason to fight like her life depended on it. In the boxing sense, it pretty much did.

Her re-emergence from near obsolescence and back into world title contention was made possible by Serrano’s desire to repay an old debt to a good friend, presenting Heather with the opportunity now that Hardy had first made possible for her four years ago. An act of reciprocal altruism that should not be mistaken for Serrano treating Heather as a charity case. 

Hardy is in good standing, having paid her debts to the fight game in full and deserving of what she is pragmatic enough to know is more than likely her last chance. To make that long walk from the dressing room down the aisle and bring ‘The Heat.’ To see her image lit up on an arena marquee. To defy the odds. To prove the doubters and haters wrong. To have her name remembered and spoken by future generations as a fighter who mattered.     

If pushing and shoving and talking shit during fight week is your thing, you’ve come to the wrong place. Nothing but mutual respect here, albeit with a dose of classic New York attitude. This Saturday in Dallas, Texas, Amanda Serrano and Heather Hardy plan to show the world that you can take the girls out of Brooklyn, but see what happens when you try to take the Brooklyn out of these girls. 

Denied her mandatory shot at then-Undisputed super-middleweight champion Franchon Crews-Dezurn, who instead lost her title to Savannah Marshall last month, Shadasia Green stays busy with a tune-up against 7-1 Olivia Curry on this weekend’s undercard. 

Green last shared a bill with Serrano at the Hulu Theatre in February, decking and ultimately stopping former unified WBA/IBF 168-pound champion Elin Cederroos to send the unmistakable message to the women occupying the upper echelon of the division that you can run but you can’t hide from ‘The Sweet Terminator.’ This was the ninth knockout in a row for the power-puncher from Paterson, New Jersey, who has gone the distance only once in twelve fights so far.

As for Curry, the 33-year-old fighting out of Chicago is coming off a unanimous decision win over battle-tested veteran and former super-featherweight world champion Olivia Gerula on April 8. A 2019 National Golden Gloves finalist, Curry made her debut in the paid ranks two years later and experienced her only loss in her third pro bout, a four-round decision which went to Karina Avila Ortiz. 

Shadasia Green has had enough of standing by, next in line, and waiting patiently for her turn to come only to be ducked and leapfrogged. Saturday evening, she will look to take her frustrations out on Olivia Curry as a proxy for Savannah Marshall. No more deferments or formalities. Shadasia’s time is now.