What is next for Jarrett Hurd?
No matter how you slice it, the scene looks rather grim for former super welterweight champion Jarrett “Swift” Hurd (24-2, 16 KO’s). Let him tell it, his last bout against Luis Arias was supposed to be a walk in the park. Well if that was the case, the park was in a dangerous neighborhood and full of beady-eyed, knife wielding robbers! Instead of breezing through Arias, Swift was roughed up, out-worked, cut and ate more right hands than the law should allow. After ten hard-fought rounds, Hurd was saddled with a depressing split decision loss. Hurd is now 1-2 in his last three fights.
The upset loss to Arias is just one fight removed from his defeat at the hands of Julian Williams. The Williams fight stood as his first professional setback. Even worse, Hurd lost his WBA Super and IBF Super Welterweight titles to Williams. Eight months later, he would bounce back in the win column after claiming a unanimous decision over Francisco Santana. Yet that bout came very early in 2020. Following the prizefight, Hurd was inactive for the next year and a half.
GLOOMY NIGHT IN THE RING
Hurd was always known to be a huge super welterweight who had to drop a great deal to make the 154-pound limit. Clearly Swift was not concerned with his weight during the down time. He has openly admitted that he swelled to well over two hundred pounds. In fact, that is why his bout with Arias was contested at middleweight instead of 154 pounds. Hurd did not want to put in the extra strain to get all the way back down to super welterweight.
Swift was the obvious favorite to win heading into the fight with Arias. He had fought and defeated better opposition whereas Arias lost his biggest step up fight with Daniel Jacobs. In fact, prior to his match with Hurd, Arias had not enjoyed a win since June of 2017. This only compounds why it was such a significant upset.
GRIM REALITY
Ahead of his dust-up with Luis Arias, Hurd confidently claimed that he was still the best fighter at 154. He asserted that he wanted to avenge his loss to Williams and anxiously craved a fight with unified super welterweight champion Jermell Charlo. Now those self-prescribed victories sound like pipe dreams at best.
To begin, despite boasting about his new chief second Kay Koroma, Hurd fought the same old Michael Myers style he always has. He simply kept slowly walking forward, taking all sorts of damage in order to get his offense off. Swift displayed zero defense, no new wrinkles and performed as if he had not picked up anything new. As a result of this dismal outing, it is outrageously hard to envision this version of Hurd defeating Williams or Charlo.
Yet, perhaps the most damning element of the night was the fact that the bout was contested at middleweight. Even without having to shed the extra pounds Swift was generally listless and regularly looked tired. If he was forced to go all the way back down to 154, it seems all that much more unlikely he will win against top competition.
So, where is Jarrett Hurd supposed to go from here? For his sake, and his fans, let’s hope this was merely an off night amplified by ring rust. Although, the more likely ugly truth is, we just might have already seen the best out of Hurd. In that case, it is only going to continue going downhill from here. Regardless of what happens next, 3kingsboxing will be there to report the news.
By: Jerrell Fletcher
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