Brotherhood can mean a lot of different things to people.

It can be the traditional bond shared between brothers. That could extend to a group of friends, whose shared experiences forges lifelong connections that are as strong or even stronger than experienced between family. Brotherhood could be the term for a community with a common interest or goal whether that be culturally, religiously or as part of a pastime.

For Harry and George Hardwick, brotherhood has meant being in one another’s pockets for decades, as children and eventually as partners as they embarked on their martial arts journey. It has meant spending countless hours training, bleeding and crying together.

It has meant being there for every up and down, picking one another up from the darkness of defeat and injury, supporting each other on fight night, working tirelessly to improve both of their games, wiping blood off the other’s cheek and pushing each other to be the best.

For a long time, for Harry Hardwick, it also meant taking a backseat to his younger brother. It was George who became Cage Warriors champion first. It was George who was headlining areas first. It was George who got the first opportunity to compete for a UFC contract.

It might not have felt like that for Harry, but from a fan’s perspective, he was always in George’s shadow. It was “did you know George Hardwick has a brother who fights?” before it was “have you seen the Hardwick Brothers fight?” for a large percentage of fight fans.

That is no longer the case. The past two years have seen Harry “Houdini” Hardwick join his brother at the top of the mountain in Cage Warriors.

Always an incredibly capable fighter, with the patented Middlesbrough Fight Academy style of constant pressure enough to break down opponents, Harry entered 2023 with an 8-3-1 record and unbeaten in his four Cage Warriors outings until that point.

You knew what you were in for with Houdini. He would be in his opponent’s face throughout the fight, which would make for a vicious battle, doing just enough to score the victory on the scorecards. Decision wins over Jean N’Doye, Konmon Deh and Steve Aimable came either side of a violent draw with Italian Federico Pasquali.

Hardwick was delivering the excitement but wasn’t creating the viral moments to grab the attention of the MMA community at large. At a time where every one of George’s fights seemed to end in a soul-claiming body shot, Harry was nailed on to fight out the full 15 minutes, so it’s not hard to see why he was always second fiddle when discussing the tandem. It felt like Harry lacked the killer instinct of his brother.

That changed in the blink of an eye at the Indigo, Cage Warrior’s London base inside the 02, when he took out Brazilian Vitor Estevam. Using his opponent’s aggression against him, Hardwick slipped behind Estevam in a flash to take his back and lock in a rear naked choke that resulted in a much-needed stoppage and he hasn’t looked back since.

Given his first main event opportunity in May 2024, as close to his home of Boro as feasibly possible at the Vertu Motors Arena in Newcastle, Harry Hardwick decimated Orlando Wilson Prins inside two rounds to become the Cage Warriors Featherweight Champion as he showcased a more ferocious side to his game.

Nothing has changed about Harry Hardwick’s immediate style over the past two years. Everything is still predicated on that relentless MFA pressure, a resilience that is only built from being from such a hard-nosed area and silky smooth switch-hitting that renders opponents unable to keep track of where the next shot is coming from.

It’s just better, now. It’s more dialled in. It’s sharper, it’s nastier and it’s overwhelming other fighters. This was even more apparent in Hardwick’s second headlining outing last year, as he took on the fearsome Keweny Lopes.

A standout in LFA and Shooto Brasil and a product of the famed Novo Uniao team, Lopes brought an eleven-fight winning streak to Newcastle, alongside a terrifying highlight reel of knockouts which included his most recent win when he’d punched Wellington Prado from Sao Paulo to Rio de Janeiro.

An explosive, carved out of granite athlete, Lopes was poised to be the biggest test of Harry’s career and he passed it with flying colours by drowning the Brazilian with pressure, pace and resilience.

Lopes came flying out of the traps in the first round and cut an imposing figure, muscles upon muscles with the kind of frame that looks like it hurts to hit, never mind be hit by. He landed some thunderous leg kicks to disrupt Harry’s probing teep kicks and exploded into action whenever it felt like Hardwick was edging too close to the cage, catching him with some ripping shots.

Other fighters would’ve crumbled under that kind of power, but Harwick kept his cool and began to time Lopes’s aggressive attacks, resulting in a collision that saw a cracking left hook from Lopes and a 1-2 from Harry land in quick succession.

Returning to the corner with blood running down his face, Hardwick looked across the cage to see Lopes already starting to struggle, his shoulders sinking in between heavy breaths. All of those muscles need a hell of a lot of oxygen to keep going.

The second round opened with Hardwick popping Lopes’s nose with a flush left hook, dropping him momentarily and exacerbating the Brazilian’s heavy breathing. In a moment of complacency, Lopes tried a loose spinning elbow and in a flashback to the Estevam fight, Harry took his back and tried to lock in a choke.

The blood pouring from his nose made Lopes hard to get a hold of and he was able to escape back to his stool at the end of the round.

Rather than letting his inability to finish the fight haunt him by becoming overeager, as it may have in the past, Hardwick instead gritted his teeth and preared to take Lopes to waters even murkier than the River Tees.

In what felt like his final flurry, Lopes tried another spinning attack and again gave away his back to the Middlesbrough man. The mix of blood and sweat acted like baby oil, with a tangle of legs ending up in the Brazilian getting hold of a kneebar. Fortune wasn’t going to put the featherweight belt around his waist though, as Hardwick popped out and took top position before raining down a flurry of punches and elbows.

This is where Harry Hardwick broke Keweny Lopes. That final hope of victory had been taken away and turned into a beating that would’ve signalled the end of the fight if there’d been an extra 10 seconds on the clock.

As the capoeira master barely made it to his stool before crashing down, the elder Hardwick brother stood with his MFA teammates and started to dance. In one of his great calls, Brad Wharton exclaimed on commentary that “Hardwick is energised by the violence” and truer words have never been spoken.

That’s the secret sauce at MFA. You might be able to beat their fighters but you won’t break them. They eat up your violence and keep coming. It’s up to you whether you meet them head-on or head for the hills.

Hardwick unloaded in the fourth, winding Lopes with a horrible knee to his exhausted body before swamping him with unanswered shots against the cage forcing Rich Mitchell to jump in.

If the Estevam win had been the turning point, the Lopes win was the exclamation point. As Hardwick said himself, say he’s not world class and doesn’t belong on the biggest stage of them all. With Spandau Ballet’s Gold, which was once altered to be a terrace chant for Middlesbrough FC legend George Boateng, he danced into the night.

The plaudits have flooded in since that fight with the Featherweight Champion winning the official Cage Warriors Fighter of the Year Award, the same honour in the Yellow Gloves Podcast and The Famous Yellow fan awards and sharing the title of Cage Warriors “Moment of the Year” with George for becoming the first simultaneous brother champions in promotional history.

With the plaudits has also come opportunity. On March 21st, the day before UFC London, the 30-year-old will defend his title against Javier Garcia at the Indigo. “El Mariachi” brings name value from the American audience, having racked up several wins in LFA and with UFC brass likely watching, a win could signal a contract offer from the premier MMA brand.

For someone who was arguably in the shadows, 2024 represented the year that Harry Hardwick entered the spotlight. 2025 could be even bigger.

EDITOR’S NOTE: 2025 has indeed got even bigger. Tonight, Harry Hardwick was officially announced as the latest UFC signee, stepping in on short notice to face Kaue Fernandes at UFC Paris. Give ’em hell, Harry.

Photo Credits: Dolly Clew/@DollyClew, Cage Warriors