TORONTO – Greg Hardy was involved in another bit of in-cage controversy after his fight with Ben Sosoli last Friday at UFC on ESPN 6 was ruled a no contest.
Hardy, who has asthma, requested his inhaler in between the second and third rounds. When asked about it by an in-cage Massachusetts State Athletic Commission official, Hardy replied that “it’s USADA approved” and proceeded to use it. Hardy immediately hit with with criticism, as it wasn’t a good look.
Originally a unanimous decision win for Hardy, the fight was later overturned and ruled a no contest after use of the inhaler was deemed illegal. Speaking Monday at a gathering in Toronto, former referee turned Bellator analyst John McCarthy placed blame on the commission for not preventing Hardy from using the inhaler when he asked about it.
“It falls on the commission,” McCarthy said. “That inspector is an absolute … he’s an authority with that athletic commission. He is your person inside. He was assigned, that man or that woman. to do that job. His job was to be with Greg Hardy the whole time. He is a representative of the commission, so when Greg Hardy … Greg Hardy did nothing wrong.
“Greg Hardy’s got asthma. I got asthma. And so Greg Hardy feels like ‘Oh, I’m getting tight here, I’m in between the second and third round of the fight, and that’s 5 minutes, and I’m going to have a hard timing breathing in this third round. Can I take my inhaler?’ And he says ‘Hey, can I take my inhaler?’ And that person, when I train people all the time, referees, all of them, I say, if you don’t know, someone asks you a question and you don’t know the absolute right answer, your job is to say I don’t know. Let me find out for you.”
McCarthy experienced a similar situation in 2010 during a Strikeforce event in which KJ Noons and Muhammed Lawal both used compressed oxygen in their respective bouts, which was approved by the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation.
“It’s good that everyone saw it, because now everyone knows, but I had it in the past and … Texas allowed an oxygen bottle when I told (the fighters) ‘No, you can’t do that.’ They went to the commission, commission said yes, and then they had it in the fight. You guys are idiots and sure enough, the media ate the (Texas commission) apart for what they did.”
While McCarthy agrees that Hardy shouldn’t have been allowed to use the inhaler as it could have given him an advantage going into the third round, he believes the commission did Hardy wrong and cost him a lot of money.
“Now, you can’t have that done because it is an advantage,” McCarthy said. “You can’t have one fighter getting an advantage when the other fighter is not. You get to breathe the same air inside of that arena, and you can’t alter that air in any fashion.”
“I feel bad for Greg,” McCarthy added. “He’s the guy getting ripped for this when he didn’t do anything. He didn’t try to cheat. He tried to get something. I don’t blame him for trying to get it.”
John McCarthy: Greg Hardy inhaler fiasco 'falls on the commission'
