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Gleason’s Gym Fighter Heather Hardy Has A Message For HBO Boxing Boss

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Gleason’s Gym Fighter Heather Hardy Has A Message For HBO Boxing Boss

She’s been training her tail off, and also working her 9 to 5, which entails training regular Joes and Janes to do boxing for fitness. And Heather Hardy has also been working as her own publicist and manager, of sorts, to boot.

The Brooklyn-Based single mom of a teen told me at the famed and fabled Gleason’s Gym that early last week, she emailed the HBO boxing boss, Peter Nelson.

The 21-0 boxer asked the cabler chief to put her Oct. 27 fight against Shelly Vincent, a rematch of their 2016 fan friendly rumble, to put the bout on HBO. The cable platform, which will exit the boxing space following this Oct. 27 event, will show a Alberto Machado super featherweight title defense versus Yuandale Evans and then the main event pitting middleweight ace Danny Jacobs against Sergey Derevyanchenko.

Alas, the powers that be decided not to make it a three-fer, and show Hardy vs. Vincent. “I don’t care about anything else, I’m not getting a big paycheck as it is, to do this tripleheader,” she said. She saw a promo poster advertising a triple header—her picture is on it—and is more than mildly irked that isn’t the case, that only two fights will be featured. “C’mon man, gimme something. Whatta I got to lose?  I’m sure Nelson won’t respond to it. But a closed mouth don’t get fed,” Hardy related.

The 36 year old boxer told me that she’s now working with a conditioning coach, consistently, at least three times a week. “It’s been fun to see how my boxing has progressed. I’m much stronger, much leaner, much more muscular,” said Hardy, who will be battling for the vacant WBO featherweight crown. “I’m doing things that are actually making my punches stronger.”

Hardy, who also does Bellator MMA, last fought in a square ring in April at Barclays Center; this faceoff will be at the venerable Madison Square Garden, in their Theater. She would like to be making a bigger check, so she could not have to see clients to pay bills. But, she knows, it is what it is. This is the life she’s chosen. Up at 6 AM, and finally clocking out some days at 8 PM. “I have to take care of my daughter, tuition bills, rent to pay.. I don’t have a choice but to win this fight. There’s days I get up and don’t feel like getting up, I have to do it. My landlord doesn’t care what’s going on!”

If you want to see Hardy's next scrap and the Oct. 27 bouts at MSG, click here.

 

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Founder/editor Michael Woods got addicted to boxing in 1990, when Buster Douglas shocked the world with his demolition of the then-impregnable Mike Tyson. The Brooklyn-based journalist has covered the sport since for ESPN The Magazine, ESPN.com, Bad Left Hook and RING. His journalism career started with NY Newsday in 1999. Michael Woods is also an accomplished blow by blow and color man, having done work for Top Rank, DiBella Entertainment, EPIX, and for Facebook Fightnight Live, since 2017.