What martial arts does Tom Hardy know?

Tom Hardy is a British actor, best known for playing roles such as Bane, Al Capone, and others. However, one role stands out more than others – and that is Tom Conlon. Back in 2011, a lesser-known Tom Hardy played Tom Conlon in the movie, ‘The Warrior’ which was about his rise in the MMA world. Here, Hardy played a typical working-class MMA fighter trying to make it in the cage. Overall, The Warrior wasn’t a bad movie and was fairly realistic as far as fight scenes go.

Having said this, it was the training that captured Hardy’s eye whilst rehearsing his role as Conlon. During rehearsals, it turns out that Hardy genuinely fell in love with MMA and he has been a martial artist ever since. In documentary footage based on the filming of The Warrior, Hardy also admitted that he had never done martial arts. So, what does Hardy train now and is he any good?

Tom Hardy trains Brazilian Jiu Jitsu

It’s no secret that Tom Hardy’s main love is Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. He has trained this for several years and back in 2020 received his blue belt in the martial art. For those that don’t know, this is the second belt on the ladder after the white belt. Generally, receiving a blue belt means around 2 years or so of training. By association, if you’ve trained BJJ for a few years then you’ll also know a little Judo and wrestling too. Although Hardy won’t know much about these arts and will be a Judo white belt, it’s safe to assume he knows a couple of takedowns.

He trains in London and has openly talked about his love for BJJ. Here, he trains in the gi and does no gi too. This training regime may explain why he’s still in good shape even well into his 40s. If you’ve ever trained BJJ then you’ll agree that it’s tough in terms of cardio and also works your muscles which certainly helps improve the look of your body. If you were to describe Tom Hardy as a martial artist, then BJJ would definitely be his main discipline as it’s the one he’s most vocal about and has legitimately trained it for several years.

Boxing

During shooting for The Warrior, Tom Hardy also trained boxing. This took place 5 times per week and was often done twice per day. When watching The Warrior, you can see he has the basic footwork and head movements as a boxer. Therefore, it’s clear that he’s done a bit of training which makes sense. Over the years, he has also returned to boxing for other roles such as Venom, which helps keep his body from ring rust.

Overall though, his boxing skills are probably quite basic. There’s nothing wrong with this and you’d expect that for a busy actor. Nonetheless, even if you did train boxing twice per day for several months with a top coach, you’d still learn the fundamentals which is a great skill when it comes to self defense. You could say that Hardy is a novice boxer, but in saying that he’s probably still better than most of the population.

Muay Thai

Another martial art that Tom Hardy trained during The Warrior was Muay Thai. Again, this makes sense as an MMA fighter would legitimately train a combination of BJJ, boxing and Muay Thai. This is a martial art that is from Thailand and it involves knees and elbow strikes. In general, it’s a pretty brutal yet effective martial art.

In The Warrior, Hardy does a few knee shots from a Thai clinch which is indicative of using Muay Thai. Like boxing though, the reality is that since shooting for the film, Hardy hasn’t really continued to train Muay Thai and focuses most of his training on BJJ. Nonetheless, like his boxing skills, his Muay Thai is still solid and better than most.

So, how good is Tom Hardy at martial arts?

It’s fair to say that Tom Hardy is good at BJJ and has trained for a number of years. In terms of time spent, he may even be a black in certain other martial arts that give out black belts quicker than in BJJ. With this said, Hardy is by no means an expert in BJJ – but he is still more than capable of using his BJJ skills in self defense. You would imagine that he knows enough about takedowns to put an untrained opponent to the floor, and from there he knows more than enough to control and subdue his opponents.

In terms of striking, Hardy also knows more than most without being a specialist. Although he’s experienced and knows a few fundamental moves – he’s not as good at striking as he is with grappling. In summary, you could say that Tom Hardy’s fighting style is primarily grappling-based mixed in with a few basic striking moves.

As a result, he would be able to beat most average people in a fight (especially when you include his strength and conditioning training which helps). You could argue that this is a success for a man in his 40s. Instead of getting out of shape, it seems that Hardy has reversed the clock and is a decent enough fighter. Yes, he may not exactly be at the level of a professional MMA fighter, but for a family man, he is solid enough and knows enough martial arts knowledge to stay out of trouble.

If you want to learn more about Brazilian Jiu Jitsu then check out this book which does a great job of explaining the core techniques.