Big-fight preview: Jarrett Hurd vs. Jeison Rosario

Amid the layoffs and losses endured by Jarrett Hurd and Jeison Rosario were likely moments when they resisted, wrestled with, and realised the truth that boxing, for now, is what they were put on this earth to do. At some point on Wednesday night, during what promises to be a fascinating must-win brawl scheduled for 10 middleweight rounds, at least one will be forced to question their purpose and future all over again.

That is the perverse beauty of all-or-nothing contests like this: There is nowhere to hide from the truth.

The promoter who brought them together, ProBox TV boss Garry Jonas, is adept at reinvigorating and developing careers through the very simple premise of making well-matched, 50/50 fights. Not so much throwing fighters in at the deep end, but an insistence that they prove they can swim in waters to which their talents are (or should be) accustomed. 

“Ideally, they wanted tune-ups, but we explained to the powers that be that ProBox TV doesn’t do tune-ups,” explained Jonas, who thanked Sampson Leckowicz, Luis DeCubas and PBC for their assistance in making the contest.

“There’s a shift in boxing now where, more and more, losses don’t matter and good fights are what’s important even at non-championship levels. And the fighters know they will be rewarded for taking fights that are uncomfortable.

“I’m not sure it’s the end of the line for the loser,” Jonas told BoxingScene. “If both come prepared and bring their best then no it isn’t – not with ProBox TV. But what is certain is that the winner has a clearer path back to significance and big fights.”

Neither Hurd nor Rosario is a stranger to big fights. They’re both present in the recent junior middleweight lineage that spawned several high-quality tussles and led to Jermell Charlo claiming all four belts, beating Rosario along the way. Before that, the Miami-based, Dominican Republic-born fighter – now 24-4-1 (18 KOs) – would win the WBA and IBF titles eight months after Hurd lost them.  

While Rosario’s time at the top was both brief and unexpected, Hurd enjoyed a more fruitful stay in the hot seat, even flirting with boxing superstardom for a period.

Shortly after weighing in for his championship defense against Jason Welborn, a fun appetizer for the first Deontay Wilder-Tyson Fury fight in December 2018, Hurd was sat with his team at a plush pizza joint adjacent to the Los Angeles Staples Center. 

His broad, tattooed physique tried to escape from a muscle-hugging t-shirt and his thorny hair, dyed orange at the tips, added to an aura that made everyone in the restaurant gawp. 

Approximately 24 hours later, the plucky but overmatched Welborn resisted inevitable defeat for three-and-a-bit rounds before succumbing to one last violent body assault in the fourth. When Hurd – still champ, still unbeaten – flashed his pearly whites in victory he seemed to be readying himself for lift-off.

The dramatic plummet that followed, then, came as quite the shock. Six months later, he would lose his next fight and two world titles to Julian Williams via thrilling split decision following a contest in which Hurt too greedily embraced his taste for a brawl. Fringe contender-cum-gatekeeper Luis Arias outhustled “Swift” in a 10-rounder in the summer of 2021 and then, after a 16-month layoff, the unheralded Jose Armando Resendiz forced a stoppage in the 10th round. 

Once beating quality fighters like Austin Trout, Erislandy Lara and Tony Harrison, and drawing crowds just by eating in a tight shirt, 33-year-old Hurt is today battling for attention and a sense of relevance; a predicament not uncommon when fighters only familiar with winning suddenly start to lose.

On Wednesday night, inside the ProBox TV Events Center in Tampa, Florida, Hurd encounters an opponent who is also prepping for survival.

Though he’s younger at 29 years old, Rosario’s fall from grace looks more difficult to reverse. He’s the fighter who dethroned Williams in an upset even bigger than Hurd losing to “J Rock” but his reign as WBA and IBF champion lasted only eight months. Charlo dropped Rosario three times in September 2020, stopping him in eight rounds. Ten months passed before he was knocked out in six rounds by Erickson Lubin and, in his most recent foray into world class in November 2022, Brian Mendoza needed only five to score the stoppage. 

One might say that such defeats came against better fighters than those who upset Hurd and conclude that Rosario, by virtue of keeping better company, should be favored to win. Yet nobody knows what all those blows, crafted by world-level punchers, have ultimately taken out of him – all four of his career losses came inside schedule. Furthermore, he lived badly outside the ring, embracing bad habits that put premature miles on the clock to such an extent he announced his retirement after the loss to Mendoza.

His new trainer, Bob Santos (who is also looking after Mendoza), was open about the extent of the rebuild job when talking to BoxingScene this week: “He got himself in a hole and he’s going to have to find a way to dig out of it. So he chose me to be the coach to help him dig out of the hole, and it’s a pretty damn deep hole, to say the least.

“It’s no secret that he wasn’t living the cleanest lifestyle,” Santos continued. “But with me I don’t care how talented you are – we’ve got to give maximum effort and give our best. If we can’t do that, then what are we doing? I don’t want him to cheat himself, cheat me, or cheat the fans… We’ll see how he shows up on Wednesday night. It’s a difficult task, but if he’s done everything right, he’s got a chance to turn things around.”

Whether Santos is laying all his cards on the table from the start or bluffing Hurd into a false sense of superiority, well, only time will tell.

The fighter’s own battle cry was more heartening. “I feel like I’ve started over again when I was at my best,” Rosario told BoxingScene. “The way this camp has been going is incredible. I needed a no-nonsense coach [like Santos] to get me back into shape. We’ve put a lot of hard work in for the last three months. I feel like I’m back to my old self.”

Hurd, 25-3 (17 KOs), hasn’t looked like his old self for a while, either. What was once a thrilling come-forward style designed to marmalize all who stood in its way might now be described as careless, clunky, and far too easy to read. Trained by Andre Robin, Hurd accepts that what was once effortless is now significantly more difficult.

“I wake up some days feeling stiff as I don’t know what,” he admitted last week. “I used to just come to the gym and hop right in the ring, man. That ain’t happening no more. I gotta stretch and get myself warmed up,” he acknowledged. “With age, your reflexes slow down a little, your reaction time isn’t the same as you picture it, you can see ‘em coming sometimes but you can’t get out of the way like you used to. Things like that happen with age. It’s a part of the game. So you’ve got to fight smarter.”

The feeling here is that Hurd, acutely aware of his own mortality, will indeed be the smarter of the two, see enough of what’s coming from his opponent and be able to apply the punches required to finish this affair in the second half – perhaps by exposing Rosario’s apparent susceptibility to the body, an area in which Hurd has always had exceptional aim. But when predicting this one, tossing a coin is surely preferable to overthinking it.

“Perhaps they got hungrier and more focused than at any other point in their careers,” Jonas said when asked what kind of fight he’s expecting. “Desperation, and that sense of urgency that comes with it, brings out the best in all of us. 

“They both have that do-or-die mentality and have known about the fight for a while, both are coming in fully prepared. But what happens? I have no idea. Not knowing what to expect is a good reason to watch the fight… I’m optimistic it will be a good one.”

*Hurd-Rosario can be watched live on ProBox TV’s YouTube channel but, for those wanting the best possible picture quality, and extra content, it’s advised to view through the completely free ProBox TV app.