Jessica Rose-Clark Says She’s Against UFC Signing Greg Hardy

In an interview with the Phone Booth fighting podcast (via MMA Fighting), Jessica Rose-Clark, who has been a victim of domestic violence, said she’s against the UFC signing Greg Hardy, who was arrested in 2014 for assaulting his girlfriend. Here are highlights:

On being a victim of violence: “I had a spate with domestic violence before I moved out here to Vegas. That’s actually why I moved to Vegas. I had my fiance – at the time – arrested on one count of attempted murder and two counts of assault. He didn’t get convicted. He got a 15-month suspended sentence, still allowed to leave the country. They gave him his second chance and I’m a firm believer that someone who is capable of going as far as he went with me – and I know he’s been further with other women before I met him – he’s not going to change. He can do all the convincing and all the lying in the world and he can convince you that he’s a really good person, but who he is at his core is someone who’s capable and willing to do stuff like that. So I am very against Greg [Hardy] being signed because I don’t believe that people like that change.“

On Greg Hardy being allowed a second chance: “Athletic ability seems to supersede any negative thing you do in your life. You see it time and time again, like Kobe Bryant. It happens so often and it blows my mind that that’s where our society is at. Like, ‘Oh, he did all these really terrible things, but he’s an amazing athlete, so f**k it, let’s just let him keep going and let him keep making his millions and let him keep being on TV.’ There’s no punishment. What stops him from going and doing it to the next girlfriend? I promise you that wasn’t the first girlfriend that he did that to but he didn’t get punished for that one, either. He didn’t get punished for the first one and he didn’t get punished for that one and now he’s going to be televised on one of the largest broadcasts in the world, for one of the most popular sports in the world. Where the f**k is the punishment? What’s stopping him from doing it to every girl that comes into contact with him?”