Dan Hardy: Jimi Manuwa’s KO of Corey Anderson was “the scariest thing I’ve ever seen.”

As the color commentator for most of the UFC’s trips to Europe, Dan Hardy has had a front row seat for some pretty incredible moments. One of those moments occurred in the main event of the UFC’s most recent trip to London, England, which went down earlier this year.

In that main event, England’s own Jimi Manuwa scored a crushing, first-round knockout over the talented Corey Anderson, sealing the deal with a blistering left hand. According to Hardy, who was closer to the action than anyone but the referee and ringside cameramen, this knockout was one of the scariest things he’d ever seen.

“I was probably closer than anybody other than the referee in London when he knocked out Corey Anderson,” Hardy said during a Q&A in the buildup to the UFC’s Sunday trip to Stockholm, Sweden, where he will return to the commentary booth (via MMAJunkie). “It was the scariest thing I’ve ever seen, because it was almost like he didn’t touch him.”

During this Q&A, Hardy also weighed in on Manuwa’s desired boxing match with fellow UK star David Haye. While Hardy gives Conor McGregor little chance in a boxing match with Floyd Mayweather, he is very confident Manuwa could get the win against Haye.

“Jimi all day,” Hardy said. “Even in a boxing match, Jimi needs to land one time. You could put 10 inches of padding between Jimi’s left hook and his opponent, and he’s still going to knock him out.”

With his knockout of Anderson, Manuwa burst into light heavyweight title contention, and could well be the man to fight the winner of Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier’s UFC 214 title fight. While he doesn’t have a fight booked currently, his next engagement is expected to be announced shortly.

What do you think of Dan Hardy’s assessment of Jimi Manuwa?

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 5/28/2017.