During his appearance on the JRE MMA Show 178, former UFC welterweight contender Dan Hardy opened up to Joe Rogan about how the UFC had a video removed from his YouTube channel after he publicly criticized referee Herb Dean following a late stoppage.
Hardy explained that after a confrontation with Dean during the Jai Herbert vs. Francisco Trinaldo match, he decided to go public with his account of events.
“What I did was I created a video that I put up on YouTube which the UFC actually contacted YouTube and had them delete off the back end,” he told Rogan.
The video was substantial. “It was about an hour and a quarter long,” Hardy said. “It was a decent chunk of information, but I went through what had happened on the night, other circumstances where Herbert had maybe not pulled the trigger quick enough.”
Hardy said the video gained traction before disappearing. He said, “It got a couple of hundred thousand views before it was taken down. If you look at it now, it’s just a little gray square with three dots and there’s just nothing on the back end. They literally went into my channel and took it away.”
Rogan responded, “That’s so weird that they could take down something that doesn’t violate any laws or rules.”
Hardy offered his theory on how the removal was justified. “I don’t know whether they contacted YouTube and said, ‘Hey, he’s used some UFC footage.’ But at the time, yeah, I did. But at the time, I had permission to use UFC footage. They were allowing me to make war rooms and all kinds of stuff.”
He explained the role he believed he was filling for the organization. He said, “I was an ambassador for Europe as well as being a commentator. So my job in my mind was to spread the word of MMA. I’m trying to educate everybody as much as I can.”
He continued, “I could make a lot more content through my channel than I could rely on the UFC to make content. So I was just trying to churn extra stuff out to keep drawing attention to it. They’d given me permission to use footage on my channel. And I’d built a company off the back of this. I’d employed my Raptors. And all that was gone.”
Hardy acknowledged that his own decision to post without waiting for UFC guidance played a role.
He stated, “I knew on that day my card was marked because I was too stubborn. I didn’t wait for the UFC to tell me what I should have said. I posted my video. I wanted to clear my name and I wanted to back up the reason why I’d said that.”
He closed out his thoughts on the matter by saying, “I was disappointed that the UFC kind of pulled all support for me and backed Herb in that situation.”
