In calls to keep Greg Hardy out of MMA and the UFC, our own motives are worth questioning

So there I was, drinking my morning coffee and reading this Bleacher Report column by Patrick Wyman, a writer I like and respect.

The column’s all about Greg Hardy, the former NFL defensive lineman who now says he intends to become a professional MMA fighter after being essentially driven out of the league by alleged incidents of domestic violence. I found myself nodding along as Wyman listed all the reasons why we shouldn’t welcome a man with Hardy’s past into MMA, and then I came to this part:

“It’s one thing to bring on fighters with troubled pasts of whom the general public knows nothing. It’s another entirely to bring on someone who’s already famous and whose public profile is dominated by trouble around a serious social issue such as domestic violence.”

That’s when I had to stop and ask myself, wait, what are we really talking about here?

It’s reasonable and relatively easy to adopt the con position when it comes to Hardy’s MMA ambitions. NFL reporter and MMA trainer Jay Glazer did so quickly and with great fervor almost as soon as reports of Hardy’s intentions surfaced. He wasn’t alone, either.

And if you didn’t know better, you’d think this swift and strong response was just us, the MMA community, drawing a line in the sand. But as Wyman’s piece acknowledges, MMA already has some convicted domestic abusers hanging around. The UFC has several accused fighters. The next UFC pay-per-view is headlined by one of them.

So, as much as I hate to ask this question, how do we justify shunning Hardy? On what specific grounds? What, we feel like we’re all stocked up on fighters with domestic violence in their pasts? We’re not taking any new applications from men who’ve hit women? At this point, you’ve got to be grandfathered in?

That doesn’t make much sense as a policy. If an infraction is bad enough to keep you from getting hired, why doesn’t the same infraction also get you fired? Not to mention, just this year the UFC signed Cody East, a heavyweight with an extensive arrest record as well as convictions for child abuse and battery.

If he can still get a UFC deal, I found myself wondering, why not Hardy? Then I remembered that phrase Wyman used when arguing against the former NFL Pro Bowl player: “already famous.”

As in, people actually know about this bad apple – and not just the people inside the MMA bubble. As in, if you let him into the upper echelons of the sport, the world outside is bound to notice.

In other words, this is about us. It’s about how we want to be perceived. And I understand that on some level. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked at something going on in the MMA world and thought, maybe it’s a good thing the mainstream sports people don’t usually pay much attention to us.

But if our focus is solely on how we want to appear, that makes you wonder if we’re even giving any thought to how we actually want to be. Oh, we don’t want this domestic abuser in MMA? Then why do we let these domestic abusers in MMA?

You could argue that Hardy is different due to his apparent and well-publicized lack of remorse, but that’s a tough standard to go by. It’s not that hard to squeeze an apology out of someone if they think their job is at stake. The UFC seems to have done it with more than one fighter on more than one occasion.

Do we get to decide who is genuinely remorseful and who’s just saying the right words? Or is even the most transparent swipe at an apology good enough – unless your fame brings too big a spotlight?

This isn’t an attempt to argue that Hardy should be welcomed into the highest level of MMA just because less famous people have slipped in while doing the same stuff. It’s a complicated question, and one worth serious consideration.

I don’t agree with UFC President Dana White on much, but I do agree that there has to be some potential for forgiveness. People can make mistakes – sometimes they can even do terrible things that hurt others – without being irredeemable scumbags who deserved to be blackballed for life.

But in order for us to figure out what we can forgive, how, and when, we probably need to have a real conversation about it. We can’t just argue for keeping the famous screw-ups out, while allowing in the ones we don’t think anyone will notice.

Because if we do that, it suggests that we’re not actually concerned about these issues and the people affected by them. It shows that we’re really just worried about ourselves, and about how our sport will look to the people who normally don’t care about it.