THE front page of ‘Boxing News’ asked: ‘Spot The Winner.’
It looked like Billy Hardy.
His face was unmarked, while Orlando Canizales was badly bruised around both eyes.
Still, Canizales kept the IBF bantamweight title with a split points win and 26 years on from that noisy night in Sunderland, Hardy shrugs at the memory.
“The next day both his eyes were shut and he had to put his hands on someone’s shoulders when he was walking out of the hotel because he couldn’t see where he was going,” said Hardy.
“I have watched it back a couple of times and counted the punches and I win by two rounds. Easy.
“The Italian judge scored the last two rounds level and I tore his head off in the last two rounds.
“But it’s history to me. Things are meant to be. I’m a big believer in that.”
Had the Italian and American judges seen the fight the way most ringsiders did at Crowtree Leisure Centre that night, Hardy would have surely become a national hero.
“There weren’t many world-title fights in Britain in those days,” said Hardy, now a chipper and chatty 60-year-old grandfather of five who works for Gateshead Council removing graffiti. “Maybe one or two a year. They were like big England football matches. World-title fights in Britain were always back-page news.
“I was a household name in the North East and it might have happened nationally if I had got the decision [over Canizales]. But I had a good career. I was the first boxer from Sunderland to win a Lonsdale belt outright and Canizales made 16 world-title defences so he wasn’t a bad fighter!”
Neither was Hardy and he was a wholesome character as well.
He promised the Lonsdale belt to young son Kirk – now 40 years old – after winning it outright by beating Ronnie Carroll in 1989 at the Crowtree Leisure Centre where he worked as a lifeguard.
The Canizales rematch was far from home, in Laredo, Texas, in May, 1991.
“They were two strange fights against Canizales,” said Hardy. “The first fight I definitely won and the second was in 120-degree heat. You cook a chicken at 140 degrees. That’s how hot it was.
“It was 90 % humidity as well and someone working on scaffolding for television had a heart attack and died.
“You couldn’t breathe. People at ringside were fanning themselves to keep cool.
“Canizales’ coach said afterwards that he was struggling and couldn’t carried on for much longer.”
Hardy has only hazy memories of the eight-round loss and was far from finished.
Up at featherweight, he won British, Commonwealth and European honours to secure another world-title shot.
He got a fight with Prince Naseem Hamed after a successful European-title defence against Steve Robinson and Hardy admits he regrets how he treated the Welshman in the build up to their fight in February, 1997.
“I regret what I said to him and I’ve apologised to him,” said Billy. “I saw what Naz did to him to get under his skin [before he took away Robinson’s world title in 1995] and I decided to do the same. I took him to one side at the weigh in and whispered in his ear.
“That was the only time I did it in my whole career, but I knew I had to rattle him, had to get under his skin, or I never would have beaten him. I was whispering things in his ear things he didn’t want to hear. Nobody else heard what I said and I’m glad.
“I apologised to him on Facebook three or four years ago. He didn’t want to be my friend at first, but he’s forgiven me now.”
The unanimous points win in front of his Sunderland fans led to the 32-year-old, 14-year pro Hardy challenging Hamed for the IBF and WBO belts and this time, Hardy was on the receiving end of the pre-fight mind games.
He said: “I was training in Sheffield and Naz, Johnny Nelson and Ryan Rhodes all came in wearing artificial big ears. They were trying to take the mickey out of me, but I was too long in the tooth for that. I was 32 years old. I just took my gloves off, sat down and waited for them to leave. I have seen Ryan and Johnny since and they said: ‘We had to do what Naz and Brendan [Ingle] told us to do.’
“I saw him [Hamed] afterwards and he said: ‘It’s all an act, this is my job’ and he was good at his job. There were 22,000 people there that night.”
They saw Hardy beaten in only 93 seconds.
“He is one of the greatest world champions we have ever produced,” he said of Hamed. “He was unbelievable.”
By the time he fought Hamed in Manchester in May, 1997, Hardy had achieved what he had set out to achieve.
“I’m from a small pit village called Castletown [in the Sunderland suburbs] and I never wanted to be just another face in the crowd,” he said.
“I went out and did what I needed to do. I still get recognised now, all these years after my last fight [in 1998]. I still get asked for photos and autographs.”
After he retired from fighting, Hardy had a stint as an amateur coach at his former club, Hylton Castle and Townend Farm ABC.
“I did what I needed to do as an amateur coach,” he said, “and then I needed a break.
“I had been in the gym since I was six years old and I didn’t want to injure my shoulders and elbows taking people on the pads anymore.
“My old amateur coach Gordon Ibinson said: ‘Why don’t you stay in the game as an MC?’
“It turned out to be a good idea. It kept me in the game without taking any punches. I really enjoy it. I get to sit there and watch every fight.”
Hardy was off to an amateur show the night after Boxing News spoke to him.
“The kids look up to me after they’ve Googled me to see who I am,” he said. “The coaches tell them who I am and they look me up.
“I’ve been an MC for 15 years and I go to shows all over the North East. I go to two or three shows a week. I go down to Whitby and as far up as Amble. There are so many clubs in the North East and that keeps me busy.”
Hardy had 150 amateur bouts before turning over in 1983 and went on to win British, Commonwealth and European honours at two weights.
The unanimous points win over Mehdi Labdouni in France in October, 1995 to become European featherweight champion is a fond memory.
“If you fought for the European title in Italy, France or Spain, you weren’t coming back with the belt,” he said. “Everyone knew that.”
Hardy talks from experience having lost and drawn fights with Vincenzo Belcastro for the European bantamweight belt in Italy, fights he’s convinced he did enough to win.
“I boxed him (Labdouni) in his home town as well,” said Hardy. “I spoke to the European supervisor before the fight and said: ‘I don’t want to get robbed.’ She told me she was going to talk to the judges and check the scorecards during the fight.”
Though he won on all the cards, Hardy said: “I put him down seven times and only one of them was counted!”
Hardy repeated a points win over Labdouni in a European-title defence at the York Hall in January, 1998 and his next fight was his last.
Paul Ingle stopped him in eight rounds, leaving Hardy with a record of 37-9-2, 17 KOs.
“I took six to eight months to consider retirement after that,” he said. “But I had started feeling punches and when you start feeling them, it’s time to get out. That was me done.”
