Posted on 10/13/2022.Full Details: Main Event - Lightweight - Heather Hardy vs. Calista Silgado 3
Boxing Insider: A New Beginning
Details on the competitors in the six-round main event lightweight bout Heather “Heat” Hardy And Callista SilgadoIt’s taking place Thursday night at Sony Hall in New York City.
If you can’t be there, watch it on PPV. Bxngtv.com: https://bxngtv.com/newbeginnings101322/
Heather “The Heat” Strong (22-2, 4 KO’s) She may still have two chapters left to write as she completes her legacy in women’s boxing.
Unlike many fighters we meet, Hardy’s boxing journey started very late. At 28, with a daughter, divorced, no child support and working up to 6 jobs at once, she decided to join a martial arts gym in the Dumbo neighborhood of Brooklyn and started boxing. A few weeks later, she had her first amateur fight. Maybe there was fear, but in her words, “for the first time in my life, I felt like something was mine.” After that, she moved to Gleason’s gym, and that’s where she learned the craft.
Within a year, Heather Hardy was dominating the amateur rankings in New York, and had climbed to #1 nationally after winning the 2011 US Women’s Championship in Colorado Springs.
It was still a struggle to pay the bills. In addition to teaching free exercise classes, her other duties include delivering books to high schools and answering the phone at Gleason. Everyone told her that no money was made in women’s boxing, and for the most part, they were right. But she wanted to do it anyway.
When she talked to him, promoter Lou DiBella told her that if she could sell $10,000 worth of tickets, she could get a spot on one of his shows. She didn’t know how she was going to do it at first, but she did it anyway – surpassing everyone’s expectations – selling $13,000 worth of tickets. That professional bout was a four-round win over Mikayla Nebel. From then on, she was just working her way up. But she could sell tickets, and that was not easy.
In October 2014, she went ten rounds for the first time when she scored a decision over Crystal Hoy for the WBC International Super Bantamweight (122-pound) Championship. The result was extraordinary; One judge won by a close count (100-90), another won by nine points and the third was a draw.
In the year In August 2015, Renata Domsodi was stopped in six rounds in a rematch from a previous contest (which was an accidental head kick).
A year later she reached a major milestone in her career, winning a ten-round decision over Shelley Vincent to win the WBC International Featherweight title. The action-packed clash was televised on the NBC Sports Network.
A rematch with Vincent took place in October 2018 at the Hulu Theater in Madison Square Garden, this time for the WBO World Featherweight Championship. And Hardy reached another milestone in her career when her hand was raised as a ten-round decision winner and new world champion.
It returns to Hulu Theater in September 2019 as Hardy puts her title on the line in her unification with the legendary Amanda Serrano, who has a record of 36-1-1 and holds the WBC championship. She lost a ten-round decision by scores of 98-91, 98-91 and 98-92. It was her first loss as a professional.
The plague came and wreaked havoc on the boxing game. So Hardy was out of the ring for 20 months before traveling to Murfreesboro, TN to play Jessica Camara. Heather scored one goal in the first round, but Kamara was able to weather any storm and emerge victorious in an eight-round decision. So now Hardy is on a two-fight losing streak since 2018.
She’s 40, but this is by no means a “senior tour.” “One last run” and maybe even more when she gets out, she has every intention of challenging herself to the World Cup again.
This will be Hardy’s eleventh fight in the Manhattan borough. She has fought 13 times in Brooklyn, once in Queens and once in Tennessee (this total includes her no-contest).
Hardy also had a career in mixed martial arts, fighting for Bellator. This started in 2017, and she compiled a 2-2 record.
She remains active in a variety of fields, and this includes coaching other women from all walks of life, with remarkable results.
Hardy was the subject of a groundbreaking documentary titled “Hardy,” which focused on her career and explored the acceptance of women as professionals in the ring. It was directed by Natasha Verma, then an 18-year-old filmmaker working on her Masters at Columbia University.
She is also a graduate of John Jay College of Criminal Justice, majoring in forensic psychology.
Weight: 132.8 lbs
Calista Silgado (20-15-3, 15 KO’s) She is one of the more experienced and well-traveled competitors in women’s boxing and could be a challenge for Heather Hardy.
When the bell rings Thursday night, it will be Salgado’s 200th round of professional boxing. And 61 of these rounds were in the world championship – well, 71, if you look at the WBC “Silver” as a world champion. And if you do, that makes her challenge for the world title nine different times. So far she has not been able to come up with any hardware.
A native of Colombia, she turned pro in November 2011 with a first-round TKO of Maria Zavala. She won her first five matches and had a 9-1-1 record after the first eleven.
In April 2013, the World Cup draw came, when she stopped Alejandra Marina Oliveiras in five for the WBO featherweight crown. Title opportunities abound since; Silgado won championships at 118, 122, 126 and 130 pounds. She went the distance in six of those fights.
“Kali” fought newly promoted Amanda Serrano for the WBO featherweight title in July 2016, but was stopped in the first round. In December of the same year, after Amanda resigned, she fought against Amanda’s sister Cindy Serrano for the same title. By this time, Silgado had completed the ten-lap distance.
Four of Salgado’s last five fights have been in the United States. This will be her fourth fight in New York City. In her last fight – on September 16 – she lost a six-round decision to world-ranked Melissa St. Ville in Brooklyn.
She has been beaten three times in the distance, all of which have come at the World Cup.
Persistence is no problem in the six rounds of this schedule; Silgado advanced to the tenth round on six separate occasions.
