IBF/WBA junior middleweight champion Jarrett Hurd (23-1, 16 KOs) tasted defeat for the first time in his seven-year pro career on Saturday night in losing to Julian “J-Rock” Williams (27-1-1, 16 KOs) by a 12 round unanimous decision at the EagleBank Arena in Fairfax, Virginia.
Williams, 29, knocked Hurd down in round 2, and never looked back. The scores were 116-111, 115-112, and 115-112. Unlike Hurd’s past fights, he showed no sense of urgency tonight.
Hurd, 27, had Vaseline in his eye, and wasn’t doing much to cover up on the inside from all the shots that Williams was hitting him with. Hurd normally hits hard, but he looked he was throwing arm punches with nothing on them. It’s unclear whether Hurd was weak because of the efforts he had to go through to make the weight or some other problem.
Williams fought a smart fight in crowding Hurd, and working him over in close with nice shots. Williams’ defense was on point tonight, as he was able to elude a lot of the arm punches that Hurd was throwing. Hurd couldn’t land anything, and when he did, his power wasn’t there. Williams was landing with more authority.
It would be wise for Hurd to move up in weight to middleweight or super middleweight. He probably won’t, because he would be stepping into the unknown in going up to 160 where his size wouldn’t be as much of an advantage for him as it is right now at 154. Williams seems to have Hurd’s number. Unless Hurd wants to get in line to go after WBO junior middleweight champion Jaime Munguia, who isn’t going to be staying at 154 too much longer, then he should move up in weight to middleweight.
Williams looks like he’s more suited for the junior middleweight division right now than Hurd is. The Hurd that we saw beat Austin Trout, Erislandy Lara and Tony Harrison would have likely been too much for Williams tonight. Hurd was weak tonight, and that’s clearly a sign that it’s time that he moves up in weight to 154. Hurd should have made the move to middleweight after his win over Erislandy Lara. It was pretty obvious after that fight that he needed to move up to 160. In Hurd’s last fight against British fighter Jason Welborn, he was taking a lot of punishment in that fight, and he did not look strong.
Other boxing results on the card:
Mario Barrios KO 2 Juan Jose Velasco
Matt Korbov draw 10 Immanuwel Aleem
