Heather “The Heat” Hardy: Fighting For More Than Just Titles

By Chris “Man of a Few Words” Benedict

Photo: Chris with Heather Hardy

“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

Unchallenged, the sun holds dominion over a cloudless July Saturday in Brooklyn.
Couples in the DUMBO section (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge) 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 rematch-and title defense-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 headbutt. This will be her 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. Much more on that to follow.
“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 contrasted against 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, NY 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 star struck, 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 was 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 in Long Island, and I was staying at the gym, with clients.”
Backtracking to the match, Hardy’s fight or flight instincts were put to the test a mere 40 seconds into the first round when a straight round 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 probationary 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.”

I hope you are paying attention, Al Haymon.

The exceptions to the rule such as Ronda Rousey and 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 boy’s club atmosphere of boxing 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 world 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 made quite a spectacle of herself by sitting 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 while she already had her hands full trying to get Jackie Trivilno 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.”

One thing you won’t hear from the Vincent camp is their having rebuffed Team Heat’s recent offer for a fight. “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.”

“The truth of it, the business of it, and anybody who is inside boxing knows,” Heather continues, “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.”
Once again, take heed Al Haymon.

Up and out at 5 am 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 lots of 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 and come to the rescue of a guy who Hardy’s character feels has been looking at her a little too long and a little too wrong while they all wait for a bus, the perennially hapless Louie gets a beatdown and a black eye for his efforts. “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 super hero 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 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. 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 super hero.”

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