If Jarrett Hurd could have it his way tomorrow night, Saturday, March 4th’s bout against Jose Armando Resendiz, the co-feature, of a Showtime Championship Boxing triple-header taking place at the Toyota Arena in Ontario, Ca, would be the appetizer to a major fight. The one that seems most obvious would be greeting Jermall Charlo, a man he has previous history with, and the rather inactive WBC middleweight champion, who has let the world know he plans on returning in the summer of 2023, especially a rumored June 17th fight date, back to the sport of boxing.
Hurd, a former fringe pound-for-pound-type fighter, fought a hard road to the top of the sport defeating Tony Harrison, Austin Trout, and Erislandy Lara in consecutive bouts. Hurd would ascend to the top of the sport as a feel-good story, and an undisputed champion destined to face Jermell Charlo in a unification bout, on pay-per-view, or at least that is what we assumed. What turned out was an upset loss to Julian “J-Rock” Williams, in which he lost both of his world titles, an average performance against Francisco “Chia” Santana, and nearly two years ago, Hurd would lose a split-decision to Luis Arias.
“Training outside of my hometown just wasn’t a great thing for me. I had all my success there in training. Now I’m training with my new coach Andrew Council back in Maryland. We’re a great match and he allows me to be myself,” said Hurd. “I almost feel like I’m back to where I was before I was unified world champion. I’m back to the guy that people weren’t really believing in. I’m back to being the guy who has to go out there and prove every time why I was where I was. I had to go out there and beat guys that nobody thought I would beat. This time off made me fall back in love with the sport.”
For his last two training camps, Hurd had trained outside of the Maryland area, and with his last training camp happening right after his father passed away, Hurd is going back to what worked for him, being back in the part of the United States he loves so much. Hurd will need all that he can muster as his opponent, Resendiz is not all that interested in Hurd’s redemption, and his final act in the sport. Resendiz is coming to win, and change his destiny and fortune, as a fighter - as this truly is a fight in which we learn how much Jarrett Hurd has left at this point.
“I know he’s coming with the Mexican style, but they all say I have the Mexican style too. So it’s going to be a war for sure,” said Hurd “Middleweight is where I’m going to stay at. They’re going to be saying that ‘Swift’ is back after Saturday. I’m going to shake off the cobwebs, but I’m going out there to dominate.”
For Hurd to get one last chance at greatness, and huge paydays he has to win on Sunday. Armed with a great professional coach in his corner, Andrew Council as well as one of the most in-demand coaches in the amateur boxing world, Darrell Davis assisting, Hurd has the infrastructure for success, now it simply comes down to how many miles he has left in the sport itself. For Hurd, it is now or never in terms of getting to where he once was, just a few years ago.
“We’ve been staying ready. I had a lot of wars in the beginning of my career, so I think that a break wasn’t such a bad thing,” said Hurd. “I’ve been in some tough fights and I took the time to get myself together.”
