By Allan Fox: IBF/WBA unior middleweight champion Jarrett ‘Swift’ Hurd (22-0, 15 KOs) says he plans on returning to the ring soon in the next two months to start getting ready for his next fight, which he says will be a tune-up, according to Premier Boxing Champions. Hurd, 27, wants to come back slowly after undergoing surgery in his right shoulder last week.
Hurd wants to get the tune-up fight out of the way before he faces WBC junior middleweight champion Jermell Charlo in a unification fight. The fans can pretty much forget about Hurd vs. Charlo taking place this year. Hopefully it can happen next year if something doesn’t get in the way, like Charlo getting beat or Hurd’s shoulder still giving him problems.
Hurd wasn’t impressed with Charlo’s recent 12 round decision win over former WBA 154lb champion Austin Trout, saying to Premier Boxing Champions, “He didn’t look as good as he should have.” The 6’1” Hurd will have to be seen as the favorite to beat Charlo when the two of them do wind up facing each other in the near future. Given that Hurd is going to come back slowly from his shoulder surgery, the unification fight between him and the 28-year-old Charlo is going to need to wait until early 2019. The Showtime Boxing network is very interested in putting the Charlo vs. Hurd fight on.
Hurd looked good in his last fight in defeating WBA Super World junior middleweight champion Erislandy ‘The American Dream’ Lara by a 12 round split decision last April. Hurd knocked Lara down in the 12th round and had him close to being knocked out. The fight was in the balance going into the championship rounds, but Hurd did an excellent job of applying pressure against the tired looking Lara to cement the victory. If Hurd hadn’t gone all out in the last three rounds, Lara would have had his hand raised, as he was throwing a lot of shots and doing a good job of winning rounds.
Hurd wants to unify the junior middleweight division before moving up to 160 to go after middleweight champions Gennady Golovkin, Ryota Murata and Billy Joe Saunders. However, it’s unlikely that Hurd will be able to unify the 154 lb. weight class in it’s entirety due to the problems he’ll have in getting a fight against WBO champion Jaime Munguia. He has a title defense coming up in July against his mandatory challenger Liam Smith. If Munguia wins that fight, he could soon be facing former IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook if he wins his fight against Brandon Cook next month. There’s good money for Munguia defending against Brook. Hurd can’t stay around the junior middleweight division forever waiting to unify the division. He’s huge for the division, and he won’t be able to keep melting down to make the weight for long before he finally drains himself too much.
Hurd has emerged from obscurity in his last three fights in beating Austin Trout, Tony Harrison and Erislandy Lara. Hurd is quickly building a large fans base with his Golovkin-like victories over well-known fighters.