Most media outlets I think called foul play, including BloodyElbow. Sherdog opinion piece said:
"One needn’t have years of experience to know the basic rules of the sport; it doesn’t take multiple seasons playing soccer to know not to use your hands. The simpler explanation is likely the more accurate one. We can look at what we know about his temperament -- he’s highly competitive, unapologetic, prone to make excuses instead of admit wrongdoing and unafraid to violate legal boundaries -- and, eiusdem generis, apply those traits to his in-cage behavior. Crowder survived a number of big right hands and started taunting Hardy, who was visibly tiring and even more visibly frustrated. The flagrantly illegal knee was not some misunderstanding or rookie mistake. It was a deliberate manifestation of his inability to appropriately cope with challenges. We did not see an aberration; we saw the raw truth of who Hardy is as a person."
https://www.sherdog.com/news/articles/A-Little-Bit-of-Everything-148417
