{"id":439196,"date":"2010-03-17T14:05:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-17T18:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"urn:newsml:sports.yahoo,yhoo:20050301:mma,article,yhoo-ept_sports_mma_experts-228569:1"},"modified":"2010-03-17T14:05:00","modified_gmt":"2010-03-17T18:05:00","slug":"the-hype-begins-hardy-is-primed-for-a-win-over-gsp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/439196","title":{"rendered":"The hype begins: Hardy is primed for a win over GSP?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align: center\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/a323.yahoofs.com\/ymg\/ept_sports_mma_experts__18\/ept_sports_mma_experts-315371730-1268847658.jpg?ymqgq1CD4xBnBQQe\" \/><\/div>\n<p>The bookmakers say the fight is a whitewash. Several media members chuckled during yesterday&#8217;s UFC 111 conference call when Georges St. Pierre called Dan Hardy. &quot;the toughest fight of his career.&quot; Yet the case is being built across the pond that their hero has a real shot at knocking off GSP. <\/p>\n<p>Gareth Davies from The Telegraph writes that <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.telegraph.co.uk\/sport\/garethadavies\/100006134\/ufc-hardy-making-history-but-can-he-deliver-gsp-knockout\/\" >Hardy is brimming with confidence<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Hardy is an 8-1 underdog. It says it all. But I believe he has a 70-30 chance of<br \/>\nwinning. More on this over the next ten days.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Michael Bisping believes Hardy can do it.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>&quot;Dan&rsquo;s in a great position. All the pressure is on GSP for<br \/>\nthis fight. He&rsquo;s earned this chance,&quot; said Bisping. &quot;He knows he&rsquo;s the underdog, but every<br \/>\nwelterweight on the planet is the underdog against the form GSP is in at the<br \/>\nmoment. Dan&rsquo;s assets are that he is an excellent striker, and will have to use<br \/>\nthat edge against GSP. But deep down, he also believes in himself.&quot; <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Even Mike Swick is on board according to Davies.<a name=\"remaining-content\"><\/a> <\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>[Swick] has also admitted he was &ldquo;seriously hurt&rdquo; by Hardy&rsquo;s hooks. &ldquo;Dan can<br \/>\ndefinitely win this if he takes his chances with his strikes. I am more excited<br \/>\nto see this GSP fight v Hardy than pretty much anyone else you could put GSP in<br \/>\nwith..His hooks are always flush. He really does land those things flush every<br \/>\ntime. He&rsquo;s a big puncher. Looking back, I was lucky enough to get out of the<br \/>\nfirst round in Manchester. He countered me right away and hit me twice on the<br \/>\ntip of the jaw. I wasn&rsquo;t knocked down, but I was seriously hurt,&quot; said Swick.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The UFC&#8217;s director of international development Marshal Zelaznik also mentions the possibility of a Hardy versus Paul Daley welterweight title fight down the road. Are we putting the cart ahead of the horse a bit?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The bookmakers say the fight is a whitewash. Several media members chuckled during yesterday&#8217;s UFC 111 conference call when Georges St. Pierre called Dan Hardy. &quot;the toughest fight of his career.&quot; Yet the case is being built across the pond that their hero has a real shot at knocking off GSP. Gareth Davies from The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4012,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-439196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4012"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=439196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439196\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=439196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=439196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=439196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}