Hardy, Johnson plan on stealing show

Last year, England's Dan Hardy went from being just another fighter to stardom. But that didn't make 2010 a good year, since he lost both of his fights.

It's hard to say if his back is against the wall when he faces Anthony Johnson on Saturday night at Seattle's Key Arena for a live Ultimate Fight Night event on Spike TV. The match is not the billed main event on a show that already has set the UFN series attendance record, with more than 13,000 tickets sold. But both fighters vow it will be remembered as the main event when people remember the night.

"I just like listening to [announcer] Bruce Buffer saying, 'This is the main event of the evening,' at the top of his voice," said Hardy. "Regardless of where you are on the card, the volume in the arena will let you know who is the real main event."

Johnson agreed: "At the end of the night, they'll be talking about me and Dan Hardy."

As a general rule, losing three in a row in UFC puts you on the brink of a roster cut. Hardy's 2010 losses were to Georges St. Pierre in a welterweight title match and to leading contender Carlos Condit.

The former fight wasn't so exciting, since Hardy was outwrestled for five straight rounds. The latter was a back-and-forth stand-up war that the live crowd at London's O2 Arena loved, until the moment Condit knocked Hardy out late in the first round.

Despite the defeats, Hardy has a few things going for him. First, if UFC is planning on adding more shows to the schedule, that means it needs as many stars as possible. Hardy became a known commodity in North America in the buildup of the St. Pierre fight, and he was clearly the most popular fighter in the building – even ahead of Michael Bisping – when the two native stars combined to sell out the biggest arena in London on Oct. 16. He's one of the company's better fighters when it comes to building up a fight with his mouth. And with the exception of the St. Pierre fight, most of Hardy's matches deliver action.

"Yeah, there are some positives [about 2010]," he said. "People tell me, 'Your fan base grew, people know who you are.' But I look at it like an athlete. An athlete needs to win fights. All the perks are nice, but that's the sugar on top of the cake. I didn't get the cake last year and I need to get it this year. I need to establish myself as a permanent force in the division, and I need to win fights at the end of the day."

So whether he can survive another loss or not, Hardy mentally is going with the idea his job is at stake Saturday.

"Yeah, I always like that kind of pressure on myself," said Hardy (23-8, 1 no contest). "I always perform better like that. I didn't do that in my last fight and I paid the price for it. I've put myself in the mindset that I'm fighting for my job, and that's the worst thing for my opponent because they're getting everything I've got and then some. I belong in the UFC and I'm staying in the UFC."

Hardy has taken a different tact than usual in promoting the fight with Johnson (11-3), the biggest of the company's top-tier welterweights at 6-foot-2 and can carry as much as 220 pounds between fights.

Hardy won't say anything bad about Johnson personally, and Johnson has reciprocated. The two are actually friends. Instead, they're building up that they are going to have a great fight, and trash talking the idea that the fight is being positioned as No. 2 on the card. Both are vocal in their feelings that they should be the main event, above the Antonio Rogerio Nogueira vs. Phil Davis fight that is scheduled to go last. And they're vowing to prove the promotion wrong by having a fight that the main eventers can't follow.

"Without a doubt, and no disrespect to Nogueira and Davis, but the fight that's selling this card is this one," said Hardy.

Said Johnson, "Hell no, this fight isn't going to the ground. You're talking to two guys who love to bang, plain and simple. We don't like that lovey-dovey stuff. We're going to keep it on the feet and give people what they want, which is standing and banging. That's why we should be the main event.

"No disrespect to the guys who are in the main event, but the fans are looking at this fight like it's nonstop action," said Johnson. "Do we deserve it? We don't deserve anything given to us. If the UFC says co-main event status, we'll take that."

A big question in the fight is where both men are at mentally. Hardy is coming off the first knockout loss of his career. Johnson is coming off major knee surgery for a torn meniscus, which had bothered him since 2008.

"I was supposed to fight John Howard, fight a guy like that who I really don't like," Johnson said. "I didn't want any excuses. I tore my meniscus again while training for John Howard. I needed to get it taken care of. I needed to get that injury out of the way. It feels great now. I haven't had one complaint about my knee since having surgery."

Johnson admitted that he got very heavy during the layoff, but said making 170 will not be a problem.

With his naturally small waist and big upper body, Johnson looks two weight classes bigger than he fights, and at times has struggled to make the 170-pound limit. Because of that size and reach, a striking game developed by trainer Cung Le and wrestling skills that made him the 2004 national junior college champion at 174 pounds, 27-year-old Johnson has been thought of as a guy who could be a future champion ever since his 2007 arrival in the company. He did nothing to stop that talk when, as a fighter with only three pro fights, he debuted by knocking out Chad Reiner in 13 seconds.

But he was choked out by Josh Koscheck in his last fight, and between the loss and his injury, his timetable for reaching the top slowed greatly.

For his part, Hardy vows not to be gun shy coming off a knockout. "After being knocked out, there's no pain, nothing to be scared of, one of those things, sometimes it happens," Hardy said. "Nothing changes coming off being knocked out. I fight because I love it, the roll of the dice, throwing punches and receiving is part of the fun for me. When I look back to when I was six, I've had a lot of knockouts, but that was the first time it happened to me. That's one out of a couple hundred I'm going to give out, so I like those odds.