Jarrett Hurd to make ring-return against Luis Arias on Mayweather v Jake Paul Undercard
Well it looks like former world champion Jarrett “Swift” Hurd (24-1, 16 KO’s) is all set to make his return to the ring on June 6. When he slides through the ropes to compete, he will snap seventeen months of inactivity. He will face the challenge of Luis Arias (18-2-1, 9 KO’s). Hurd’s last opponent, Francisco Santana, was his first since suffering his only loss to Julian “J-Rock” Williams. While Hurd only has the one defeat on his ledger, it was a costly one as he was strong-armed for his WBA, IBF and IBO World Super Welterweight titles. Since that costly setback, Swift has largely faded into obscurity within the super welterweight boxing scene.
Similar to Hurd, Arias has remained inactive for an extended period of time. When he emerges from his corner to fight Hurd, he will snap twenty-two months of idle time. In fact, the Wisconsin native really has his back against the wall in this bout. In his last three fights, Arias has had the unsatisfying results of 0-2-1. His last victory was on enjoyed on Jun 17, 2017 against Arif Magomedov.
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Arias staged his biggest fight to date against Daniel “Miracle Man” Jacobs on November 11, 2017. Ahead of the bout, Arias kept the pre-fight hype lively by talking more trash than Oscar the Grouch at a yard sale. This raised the eye-brows on many because prior to Jacobs, Arias had never professionally competed with such a high quality adversary. Once in the ring however, the Wisconsin native largely struggled throughout the bout en route to an extremely wide unanimous decision loss.
Arias would famously blame his poor showing on an injured toe. For whatever its worth, Arias did display a very raggedy, blistered and bloody toe in the post-fight conference. A win for the currently unranked fighter would mean the world. Yet, if he comes up short against Hurd, his future on the elite level would be exceedingly bleak. When last in the ring, Hurd, who ranked #3 WBO, #3 WBA, #4 IBF and #7 WBC, was attempting to add a few more wrinkles to his game. Traditionally Swift was viewed as an all-offense fighter with a granite chin who drowned his opposition under a flood of punches. Since his defeat at the hands of J-Rock, he appeared to want to add more defensive savvy to his bag of tricks. Therefore it will be interesting to see what version of Hurd we get when he chucks knuckles with Arias.
By: Bakari Simpson
