George Hardwick is a fighting champion who puts competition first.  

In a time when some fighters are happy to sit on their champion status or undefeated streaks while their promoters feed them favourable matchups that will result in viral moments rather than true development, Hardwick has chosen to walk through the fire.  

Instead of hoping that the path of least resistance will be the safest and quickest way to a UFC call-up, he is prepared to collect the souls of well-travelled fighters from across the globe, batter down the doors of the Performance Institute and make the phone call himself.  

The lightweight’s road to the top of the MMA mountain might be littered with the hunched over remains of men who’ve crossed his path, figures whose distinguishing features are faces screwed up in agony and hands clasped to their abdomens or sides, but he’s paid for every step of the journey so far with his own blood.  

To understand the mentality of the Cage Warriors Lightweight Champion, as he prepares to defend his title against a supremely talented Yann Liasse who is currently riding a 5-fight win streak when he could wait things out for a chance to be included on the rumoured UFC London event in July, you must understand where George Hardwick has come from.  

George Hardwick is from Middlesbrough and he embodies the very spirit of a town that has always had to do things the hard way.

While it has been an easy target for Channel 4 poverty porn documentaries, from the outside looking in, Middlesbrough lives up to the labels that have been slapped on it .

A former colossus in the steel making industry, the skyline is dominated by dormant monuments to the Industrial Age.

The crime rate is high as are the levels of poverty and overall health is extremely poor as is the case for a number of towns long abandoned by the Government.

There are more takeaways per square mile than most of the London boroughs and in modern culture the town is known mostly for the Chicken Parmo – a deepfried delicacy smothered in cheese and bechemel sauce.

The people of the town are hardnosed , rough around the edges and everyone knows someone who can do something illegal for the right price. Aspirations is more likely to be the name of a hair salon or nightclub than something young people can grow up having. 

It is indeed grim up north.

It makes sense than that George Harwick, whose namesake is immortalised in statue form outside the football team’s Riverside Stadium, is a front-foot fighter that overpowers opponents with relentless pressure and weathers any obstacle with remarkable resilience.

It is an attitude that is branded onto the soul of the people of Middlesbrough from birth. There are no handouts or cutting corners to be successful. If you want something, you take it or someone else will, right from underneath your nose.

You have to be headstrong to not be sucked into some of the darker corners of the town. You work hard or you don’t feed your family, something many of us can sympathise with, it’s as simple as that.

When you get knocked on your arse, you get back up and start swinging as Middlesbrough has had to under the weight of sneering from national media. There hasn’t been any help from the powers to be, no crutches to ease the climb back, just the Spirit of Teesside.

It’s why George’s passionate post-fight speech after beating Contender Series alum Kyle Driscoll rang true for so many of us Teessiders. At the end of the day, Hardwick has fucking Boro hands and Kyle Driscoll couldn’t take them. It wasn’t hyperbole.

When it comes to battling, to being in the trenches in a war of attrition, you can’t hope to beat someone from a town where you have to fight to survive nevermind thrive.

That spirit also makes Middlesbrough strangely beautiful. Despite the headlines, the negative statistics and the harsh reality that faces many of it’s people, we’re real.

What you see is what you get and we’re all born with a bullshit detector built into our psyche. We say hello to strangers in the street and chip in to support others despite struggling ourselves. Middlesbrough is home of people of every creed, colour and background imaginable and the only thing that matters is that we’re all Boro. 

That is why when George Hardwick says that competition comes first, he isn’t lying. Talking shite doesn’t get you far in Middlesbrough. 

All of this means that when Yann Liasse enters the cage tomorrow night at Cage Warriors 152, he doesn’t simply faces off against the promotion’s Lightweight Champion, an 11-1 pro who has never been stopped and is widely considered to have one hand on a UFC contract.

He faces an intangible that he hasn’t been able to physically or mentally prepare for, an invisible foe that he’s never crossed before. 

He faces the Spirit of Teesside. He faces a man that lives, breathes and consumes fighting every day. He faces a man who was forged in steel in the same way his hometown was. He faces George Hardwick, the fighting pride of Middlesbrough. 

UP THE FUCKING BORO

Photo Credits: Dolly Clew, Cage Warriors