Originally published July 17, 2015
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| (The writer and the fighter. Me with Heather Hardy, July 2015) |
“There is no land but the land. There is no sea but the sea. There is no keeper but the key. Except for one who seizes possibilities.”
—Patti Smith (“Land”)
Unchallenged, the sun holds dominion over a cloudless July Saturday in Brooklyn.
Couples in the DUMBO section (Down Under the Manhattan
Bridge Overpass) spend a leisurely afternoon having a light lunch and sipping
iced beverages inside an air-conditioned café, perhaps perusing the titles on
the shelves of the P.S. Bookstore, or strolling hand in hand along the
pedestrian walkway of the majestic Brooklyn Bridge hovering overhead.
But not Heather Hardy and Devon Cormack. On the second floor
at 77 Front Street, suspended between the less populated sidewalks below and
the more romantic bridge above, resides historic Gleason’s Gym where Heather
rains blows upon a blue orb-shaped heavy bag while Devon, her trainer and
partner, offers instruction to tighten up the loop of her overhand rights which
follow left hooks that appear to be directed with decidedly bad intentions to
where an opponent’s ribcage would be.
Undefeated Heather Hardy (current UBF and WBC International super-bantamweight
champion, 13-0 with 1 NC) is gearing up for what I just learned is an August
1st title defense, a rematch with Renata Domsodi (to scour her record of that
no contest) at the Barclays Center, their first meeting ending prematurely due
to an eye injury sustained by Domsodi as a result of an accidental head butt.
This will be Heather’s fourth appearance at the Brooklyn arena, her last being
a split decision victory over Noemi Bosques a mere seven weeks ago on the
undercard of the nationally televised Amir Khan/Chris Algieri Premier Boxing
Champions main event. It goes without saying, unfortunately, that her fight was
not part of the network broadcast.
“One more round,” Devon tells me, and I am content to stand
back at a respectful distance and watch Heather hammer home punishing
combinations for two more minutes, grunting with the blunt force of her
powerful exertion as her hair comes a little more undone from her ponytail
following each punch.
After Devon removes her gloves, she greets me with a smile
and shake of the hand and we all make our way to the office they share to talk
awhile. I respectfully ask if she would like a few minutes to cool down before
we begin. Completely poised, if a little breathless, she replies, “No, I’m
cool.” Indeed she is. Especially taking into consideration the fact that her
fistic nickname is ‘The Heat.’
Relaxing into an oversized armchair, Heather can’t help but
beam about her recent trip to upstate Canastota, New York for the 2015
International Boxing Hall of Fame induction weekend, the culmination of which
was the enshrinement of Riddick Bowe, Ray ‘Boom Boom’ Mancini, Naseem Hamed,
Yoko Gushiken, Jim Lampley, Nigel Collins, Steve Smoger, and Rafael Mendoza.
The highlight for Hardy, however, was being seated next to Micky Ward at
Saturday night’s Banquet of Champions in Syracuse. “We really got to connect
and talk and it was so awesome. I called home and was like, ‘Dad, guess who I’m
having dinner with?!’”
Initially nervous and somewhat starstruck, she overcame her
reticence thanks to the attention and appreciation exhibited by her pugilistic
peers. “I didn’t feel like I belonged
there at first but, by the time I left, I really did. I was really shy in the beginning,
but all the guys really made me feel at home. I guess it’s kind of like being
at the gym,” she says of Gleason’s, which only began admitting women in 1983
once then-owner Ira Becker became convinced that their money was every bit as
good as a man’s. Nowadays, nearly 200 females are dues-paying, card-carrying
members. “It was really intense, really intimidating when I first came in, but
now I’m like everybody’s little sister.”
The walls surrounding the glass enclosure that serves as a
base of operations for current owner Bruce Silverglade are covered in hundreds
of photos featuring the boxers who have passed through its doors, its own hall
of fame worthy of any other. Jake LaMotta, Alexis Arguello, Aaron Pryor, Sandy
Saddler, Emile Griffith, Carmen Basilio, Dwight Qawi, Arturo Gatti, Gerry
Cooney, Mike Tyson. Even Heather’s favorite, ‘Irish’ Micky Ward.
First opened at 149th and 3rd in the Bronx in 1937,
Gleason’s moved to mid-town Manhattan in 1974, only to relocate 10 years later
to Brooklyn, its third home in its third borough. Like the very gym in which
she trains, displacement and resilience are conditions that Heather Hardy also
knows a thing or two about.
“It’s hard to think of there being small towns in Brooklyn,
but in Gerritsen Beach there’s one way in and one way out,” Hardy says of the
tight-knit Irish-Catholic community that she has called home since her youth.
“You spit on the street and you hit two of your cousins.” Proud as she is of
her roots, Heather is contemplating a change of address for the betterment of
her daughter Annie, the origins of which can be traced back to a sexual assault
experienced by Hardy at the age of twelve.
“It was someone the whole family knew, and it was kind of
like something you don’t talk about because we go to church with his mother or
our neighbors always have their family over. What I’m finding out now, why I’m
trying to get my daughter out of there, is it’s really common in my neighborhood.
It’s really common because people know they can get away with it, and you wind
up with a lot of lower working-class younger kids getting involved in the wrong
kinds of things and the older kids are taking advantage.”
Caring for her brother and sister while their parents—both
with two jobs to support the family—worked virtually around the clock, she
admits to having felt like “a winning loser,” an emotional black cloud the
shadow of which she could not seem to outrun for years despite her best
efforts. “No matter how hard you fight, I couldn’t come out on top and I kind
of went into my adulthood like that, my marriage and struggling to get control
after I was divorced.”
Hardy’s turnaround came by virtue of her sister’s suggestion
that she take kickboxing classes to reclaim her naturally slender pre-birth
figure. More importantly, she rediscovered her fighting spirit and sense of
self-worth, the determination that “I wasn’t ready to give up on being Heather
yet.”
Chris Algieri, then a professional kickboxer, headlined
Hardy’s amateur debut, foreshadowing his aforementioned recent loss to ‘King’
Khan before which Heather fought and, prior to that, her controversial win over
Jackie Trivilino (in what Hardy described as a “dirty, unfulfilling fight,”
albeit the first women's bout staged at the Barclays Center) that preceded
Algieri’s bloody split-decision victory over then WBO junior-welterweight champion
Ruslan Provodnikov.
Having lost her first two amateur boxing matches, and with
only four fights on her resume, Heather entered the 2011 Golden Gloves. She
made it to the finals in the last class to box at Madison Square Garden,
walking away with the silver pendant. “I beat a couple girls I was not supposed
to beat to get there, and I beat up the girl (Sylvia Yero) so bad, but I lost.”
Dissatisfied with, but not demoralized by, her consolation prize, Hardy
proceeded to win seven subsequent titles including the Nationals, Regionals,
and Metros en route to the 2012 Golden Gloves. Not only did she defeat Nicole
Russell to win the 125-pound title, but earned the hard-won recognition as Best
Female Boxer.
Less than a month away from making her professional boxing
debut at New York’s Roseland Ballroom (where Heather would ultimately fight
five times, her February 12, 2014 points win over Christina Fuentes being part
of the last boxing card at the renowned venue), Hardy’s apartment went up in
flames. On the Fourth of July of all days. “There was some ConEd problems. We
got more water damage from them putting out the fire than anything else. But it
was an illegal apartment, so once everything was damaged, there was no
replacing anything.”
She took Annie and moved into her mom’s house, sharing the
close quarters with her sister and nephew as well. “So I had the fight and
then, three months later, while we’re still waiting for everything to clear for
the apartment to come back,” Hardy recalls, “Sandy hit the neighborhood and my
mom's house was ruined. So, it was kind of one after another. Gerritsen Beach
was under about seven feet of water for maybe eight weeks where there was no
power, no electricity. My daughter was living on Long Island and I was staying
at the gym with clients.”
Backtracking to her pro debut, Hardy’s fight or flight
instincts were put to the test a mere 40 seconds into the first round when a
straight right hand courtesy of Mikayla Nebel sent her to the canvas. Asking if
she had time to process what had just happened in real time, Heather responds with
a laugh. “I can tell you exactly what was going through my mind. I was sitting
on the floor, I stood up and looked at the ref and I was like ‘Shit.’ In eight
seconds, I was thinking, ‘I sold all those tickets. All these people are here. So
many people went to bat for me. I have to beat the shit out of her for every
second of every round.’ And I did.”
Countless times fight fans have witnessed a boxer’s
mouthpiece getting dislodged by a left cross or right hook and winding up in a
reporter’s lap in press row at ringside. But how many times have you seen a
female fighter’s protective breastplate get knocked out? So jarring were
Heather Hardy’s body shots that it happened twice to her second opponent Unique
Harris, prompting referee Shada Murdaugh to jokingly reprimand Hardy, “Hey, no
more knocking that stuff out. I’ve never seen it before. I don’t want to see it
again.”
Lou DiBella agreed to a three-fight provisionary contract
with Heather following her next win, a four-round shutout of Ivana Coleman. “It
was pretty much unspoken, knowing that I would sell tickets to my fights.
Between the media I was getting at the time and the amount of people I was
putting in the seats, my fan following, I became the first female that he ever
signed to a long-term contract.” Hence, her proud designation as ‘The First
Lady of DBE’ (DiBella Entertainment). “Our mission has since been to get me on
TV, because that’s why women aren’t seen as long-term investments. The networks
won’t televise female fights.”
The parade thrown the previous day just a few miles from
where Heather and I now sit in honor of the victorious U.S. Women’s World Cup
team notwithstanding, Hardy is pragmatic when it comes to her struggle to
compete in the boys’ club of competitive sports and to survive, much less
thrive, in a male dominated world.
“It brings me to tears when I sit and think about it, about
how unfair it is that I’m still sitting next to a man and we have the exact
same resume, only mine is better if you count ticket sales and publicity, and
he’s getting four times the money I am. And once someone said—I won’t tell you
who—but when I had mentioned this to someone before, earlier in my career, he
said, ‘Well, I can get him on ESPN in three years. I can’t do shit with you.’
That’s really where the state of women’s boxing is. I think it needs to be part
of the conversation.”
A war of words with UBF and WBA super-bantamweight champion
Shelly Vincent is one dialogue Hardy is not terribly keen to participate in. “I
don’t have time for that shit,” Heather scoffs. For nearly two years, Vincent
has not only used the various social media platforms at her disposal to
proclaim Heather “a bum and a coward” and “afraid to fight me” to anyone who
will listen, but appeared ringside at the Barclays Center wearing a crown
perched atop a Guy Fawkes mask (think the movie V For Vendetta, or the
Occupy protestors) and taunting Hardy, who already had her hands full trying to
get Jackie Trivilino to stop butting and rolling her head across her swollen
eye during clinches.
“It’s just tactics for visibility, and she wants to bring
attention to female boxing, give people something to talk about. So that became
her hook. She didn’t really have a hook. But, you know what? She’s gotten a lot
of attention for it,” Hardy concedes. “So, if I have to be the reason why, then
that’s fine.”
Team Heat’s recent offer for a fight was rebuffed by the
Vincent camp. “We tried to get her for the last one (May 29th), and that’s when
her promoter was like, ‘Ask us in the fall’ or something. And I won’t say it,
because for me it doesn’t do anything,” Heather explains. “The truth of it, the
business of it, and anybody who is inside boxing knows, she has a promoter and
I have a promoter. These two promoters are not going to invest a ton of money
putting us on a huge show where we’re both going to get paid, because people
don’t really give a fuck. We’re only signed because we sell tickets. So, he’s
not going to send his cash cow to New York, Lou’s not going to send his up to
Rhode Island (Vincent’s home state), and there’s nothing that benefits anyone
if we do a show halfway.”
Though she is not one to engage in pointless speculation on
future opponents or endeavors, Hardy’s eyes, the left brow of which is bisected
by an inch-long vertical scar, a war wound earned quite possibly during the
ugly brawl with Trivilino, become radiant at the mention of Jackie Nava.
“She is one of the biggest fighters in Mexico, male or
female,” says Heather of the 32-4-3 phenom who, just last September, took the
WBC world super-bantamweight title from Alicia Ashley, Hardy’s first trainer,
Devon’s sister, and the woman Heather contends “may be the best pound for pound
female fighter who will ever get in the ring.”
“She’s on TV, she’s making tons of money. Yeah, I’d be lying
if I said I didn’t have my eyes on her,” Hardy says of Nava. “I’m not ready for
her today, I know that. I’m 33 years old, I’m smart enough to know when I’m
ready or not. I’d be happy to step in with maybe 95% of the girls in my weight
class, but I think I need a few more under my belt before Jackie.” A bewitching
grin of the cat dreaming of eating the canary creeps onto Heather’s face before
completing her thought. “But the WBC belt, I would like to take that one.”
Up and out at 5am most days for roadwork, Hardy hits
Gleason’s a little after 6 to train clients before Devon walks Annie over from
their place so that Heather can escort her to school. “She’s like a typical 11
year-old who is so disinterested in her mother. She loves me to no end, to the
ends of the earth, but if I tell her, ‘Mommy’s in The New York Times
this week’ she’ll be like (rolling her eyes) ‘Ugh, whatever.’”
Then it’s back to Gleason’s for her own regimen of “speed
work, leg work, bag work, pad work” before she and Devon can go home to make a
quick lunch, catch up on personal correspondence and fulfill professional
obligations. After picking up Annie, who will often do her homework and enjoy a
snack in Heather and Devon’s office, Hardy picks up where she left off training
herself and her clients, normally until 8:00. Finally, there comes a respite
allowing for a family dinner together before sending Annie off to bed, after
which Heather and Devon will spend what’s left of the evening “catching up on
the day, maybe looking at some sparring footage, catching one TV show before
passing out.” On weekend nights, there is public relations hustling to be done
as she and Devon pass out fliers at neighborhood bars hoping to stir up word of
mouth interest and sell some tickets for her upcoming fight.
Heather did recently get to increase her public profile, and
have fun doing it, by appearing on stand-up comedian Louis CK’s award-winning
and critically acclaimed show Louie which airs on the FX network.
Attempting to play the good Samaritan during a bus stop altercation, the
perennially hapless Louie gets a beatdown and a black eye from Hardy’s
character for his trouble. “Louis wanted somebody who was going to beat him up,
but he wanted it to be real,” Heather laughs. “He didn’t want it to be an actor.
He wanted it to be someone who could fight. It was something so natural,
something that would so happen.”
A self-described “action junkie” who earned her Forensic
Psychology degree from John Jay College, Heather recalls that “I wanted to be
in the FBI, travel the world and fight crime. Like most people in my
neighborhood, I wound up getting pregnant at 20.” This disqualified her from
consideration for a position with the NYPD and put her dreams of being a superhero
on indefinite hold.
And, while boxing has proven to be something of a
self-fulfilling prophecy, where mild-mannered Heather Hardy gets to shed the
trappings of her “real world” identity as mom and divorcee to don boxing trunks
and sports bras in Irish-themed orange, white, and green colors to compliment
the lucky shamrock socks favored by her badass alter ego ‘The Heat’ inside the
ring, her ambitions extend well beyond television exposure and world titles. To
something more noble. More pure.
“I have a lot of girls who come in who just want confidence,
strength. And I get that from a lot of them,” concludes Hardy. “So just to be
able to pass that along to other women, to be able to give that to other women,
is just like being a superhero.”
