Mickey Gall, fresh off the Saturday chokeout of Sage Northcutt he requested and predicted, has now called out Dan Hardy.
Dan Hardy just might be willing to come out of retirement and grant the young buck another wish—but there's something Gall has to do first.
Speaking Monday on The MMA Hour broadcast with host Ariel Helwani, Hardy, who now works as a broadcaster for the UFC, said he was considering coming back to action after a heart condition sidelined him three years ago.
Even so, Hardy said Gall didn't have enough experience to face him.
"I appreciate the call-out. I appreciate the respect that he showed me, but I've never fought anybody with less than eight fights [of pro experience]," Hardy said Monday. "We're in different phases of our career. I'm not looking to knock off a future contender I might be commentating on in the future...If I'm gonna fight, I'm gonna fight a veteran."
For his part, Gall explained his reasons for the call-out on Monday, also speaking on The MMA Hour.
"If it happened, I was just putting my name out there for it," Gall told Helwani. "I don't need it. You know, I thought it'd be a fun one. It was my chance on the mic and I said 'hey, here's my chance, here's one I thought would be a fun fight.' I want to keep punching up. ... If I don't get the Dan Hardy fight, whatever...I'm a big fan of his."
Hardy also took to Twitter after the initial call-out to put some ribbing on the 24-year-old Gall.
Was he old enough to watch the @UFC when I was still fighting? ??
— Dan Hardy (@danhardymma) December 18, 2016
In case you missed some of the background, let's bring you up to speed. The 34-year-old Hardy (25-10-1) who competed for four years in the UFC's welterweight division and once fought (and lost to) champion Georges St-Pierre, retired in 2013 because of a rare heart condition.
Recently, though, Hardy suggested he was pondering a comeback at 155 pounds. Gall, whose match-making opportunism has distinguished him early in his UFC career as much as his fighting ability, called out Hardy Saturday after choking out young star-in-grooming Sage Northcutt.
“I’d like to welcome back Dan Hardy," Gall said in the cage Saturday after choking out Northcutt. "He says he wants to come back for a marquee fight—I think I’m a marquee fight right now. I’d be honored to fight him, he’s a legend, I’m a big fan. I’d love to fight Dan Hardy.”
No word yet from the UFC or anyone else on what might actually be next, in a concrete sense, for either Hardy or Gall.
