Preview: UFC Fight Night 183 Main Card

Hardy sits Greene down and goes to WORK for the stoppage!! #UFCCVegas12 pic.twitter.com/QxPivNhgSz

— UFC Canada (@UFC_CA) November 1, 2020

Heavyweights

NR | Greg Hardy (7-2, 4-2 UFC) vs. NR | Marcin Tybura (20-6, 7-5 UFC)

ODDS: Hardy (-120), Tybura (+100)

The UFC’s experiment with Hardy continues. Developing Hardy into a star was always a bit of a strange proposition. While Hardy was successful on the field in the NFL, his notoriety almost entirely stemmed from the domestic violence issues that led to his washing out of the league—something that did not exactly figure to translate into a built-in fanbase. However, the fight game has looked past such things for combatants with charisma or the potential to bring excitement, so bringing in someone at Hardy’s athletic level could have been worth the negative attention if things clicked from a business perspective. So far, that just has not been the case. Hardy’s embarrassing performance in his UFC debut against Allen Crowder—it saw him disqualified via illegal knee after he was unable to knock out Crowder—suggested he could wash out of the promotion in short order. While there has still been some, frankly, dumb stuff in Hardy’s UFC tenure that just does not happen with other fighters—using an inhaler between rounds against Ben Sosoli and almost becoming the first heavyweight to miss weight in UFC history comes to mind—he has developed enough technical consistency to isolate himself from much danger. He has also been buoyed by some advantageous matchmaking. While most prospects are forced to sink or swim in short order, the UFC has done well to put Hardy against opponents who do not have the size, athleticism or aggression to make him feel particularly uncomfortable. Still, the endgame remains unclear. While Hardy has kept winning, his victories have not been particularly inspiring or impressive, and at a time when the UFC seems set to cull a large portion of its roster, his cost-versus-results ratio falls completely out of line with the promotion’s usual modus operandi. As far as this fight goes, Tybura is probably Hardy’s second-toughest opponent to date behind Alexander Volkov, and while this is a considerable step up, it still seems set up as a Hardy win. Tybura’s success mostly hinges on his ability to outwrestle his opponent. He made his hay on the Russian scene as a bit of a grinder, and while Tybura has built out other solid parts of his game, wrestling almost always plays a part in the Pole’s wins. An October victory over Ben Rothwell showed that Tybura has enough pep in his step to handle the most plodding of giants, but that description does not fit Hardy; and Tybura’s questionable durability only serves to further swing the pendulum in the NFL exile’s favor. The pick is Hardy via first-round knockout.

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