Apr-16-2009
Antoni Hardonk – Taking His Time, Learning His Craft
By Thomas Gerbasi (
[email protected])
Call me crazy, but the fight I’m looking forward to most this weekend at UFC 97 in Montreal has nothing to do with the pound for pound king, Anderson Silva, or “The Iceman”, Chuck Liddell. No, when I settle into my seat at the Bell Centre in Montreal, I’m anticipating a heavyweight war between Antoni Hardonk and Cheick Kongo, two of the division’s best strikers.
And Hardonk, a native of Weesp, Holland, is just as eager to hear the opening bell ring.
“I’m very excited about this fight, and I’ve wanted to fight Kongo for a long time because I think he’s a very, very skilled fighter,” he said. “He’s really more experienced than I am and he has quite a good name, but I’m not sure if he’s going to stand with me though because he’s been working a lot on the ground too. He showed very tough ground and pound in his last fight, so I’m prepared for both the standup and the ground game.”
The prototypical heavyweight at 6-4, 245 pounds, Hardonk has quietly bounced back from a horrid 2007 campaign that saw him lose back to back bouts to Justin McCully and Frank Mir by putting together a three fight winning streak that has seen him stop each of his foes. Needless to say, he learned some lessons in the McCully and Mir bouts that he’s been able to apply since then.
“What I learned the most from the McCully fight was how to deal with the fence,” said Hardonk. “Before I fought in the UFC, I mostly did kickboxing and I was used to fighting in a ring. I learned my lesson against McCully. He pushed me to the fence and he kept me there. He used the fence to control me, and that gave me a really hard time. With the Frank Mir fight, it was not so much a technical thing that I learned, but the biggest mistake I made there was that I was in a rush. I have a tendency to fight aggressively; I want to move forward and I want to finish the fight as quickly as possible. But sometimes you have to be a little bit patient – you have to check your opponent out or weather the storm, and that’s what I learned from the Frank Mir fight. For me, being so offensive-minded, I opened myself up too much, and that’s why I made a big mistake and he could submit me.”
Hardonk’s gains in those fights have led to misfortune for Colin Robinson, Eddie Sanchez, and Mike Wessel. Sure, those three aren’t considered upper echelon heavyweights, but in those bouts, Hardonk showed not only his concussive power, but also an improving ground and pound game and the ability to rise from knockdowns and still prevail. The last point may be the most important, as Hardonk has shown that he isn’t a frontrunner like many strikers. He’s got the heart to fight back under fire.
“I think that’s the first skill that every fighter needs to have to make it to the top level,” he said. “Of course you train your techniques, your attacks, your defenses, and you know what to do in every situation, but a fight never goes perfect, so you get hit during a fight – sometimes not too bad, but sometimes you can get hurt bad and then it’s very important to show how you can deal with that. I think if you want to become a champion one day, then you need to have a lot of heart.”
As for his ground attack, which is being honed under the tutelage of Rickson Gracie black belt Henry Akins, Hardonk knows he still has work to do, and thus will continue to be described by fans as primarily a striker.
“With the ground, it’s a work in progress, and I’m getting better with each fight,” he said. “But of course it’s my standup skills that set me apart from most of the other fighters, so I can understand why people talk about that most of the time.”
What does baffle the 34-year old Hardonk though is hearing fighter after fighter proclaim either future greatness or title shot readiness without truly being prepared for such lofty goals. Sure, he knows you need to be confident, but he also knows that true confidence only comes with complete preparation for the task at hand and the tasks ahead.
“I look at all the big champions in all sports from the past, and I have very high standards for myself and I’m not where I want to be yet,” said Hardonk. “I realize that there is so much to learn, and I’m getting better, but I’m not there yet. I think that some of these fighters that say ‘yeah, I can fight for the title tomorrow,’ they have no idea where they want to go. They just think about fighting and not preparing. If you have the title, you also want to be successful in defending the title, and I think I always look a little bit more at the long-term.”
So even with a win over Kongo, which would be his fourth in a row and fifth in seven UFC fights, Hardonk is not expected to grab the microphone from Joe Rogan in the Octagon and scream for a shot at UFC heavyweight champ Brock Lesnar.
“I don’t think that my next fight will be for the title,” he said. “Of course, it’s good to have a few wins in a row, but I’m still quite inexperienced, and I think that all the fighters who are fighting for the title right now are more experienced and have had much more exposure in the past.”
It may not be Hardonk’s time yet, but rest assured that when his time does come, he will be ready. And that’s a scary proposition for the heavyweight division.
:thup: