by David P. Greisman

Jarrett Hurd had Oscar Molina down early. He didn’t finish him until much later.

Hurd, a 154-pound prospect, countered Molina’s left jab in the first round with a right uppercut, scoring a knockdown. Despite that, it wasn’t the right time to try to close the show, he said afterward.

“I knew I had 10 rounds, so it was no rush,” Hurd said a couple hours after scoring the 10th-round technical knockout and moving to 18-0 with 12 KOs. “It was a great uppercut that landed. I just wanted to take my time. I didn’t want to go out there and get careless.”

Some may argue that he allowed Molina back into the fight. Others would counter that Molina wasn’t badly hurt and showed his class with how he battled Hurd in the trenches over the rest of the fight.

“I knew Molina was going to be a tough opponent. He weathered the storm. I landed a lot of shots on him. He fought through it,” Hurd said. “He would fake to the body, kinda, and throw the overhand. I wish I was a little better on my defense. He was landing the overhand right a little bit. The looping shots would get behind my ear a little. Other than that I was walking him down.”

Hurd began to pull away in the final rounds. It was enough that the referee stopped the bout with about a minute to go, though the stoppage seemed to some as if it came too soon.

“I think I put on an excellence performance,” Hurd said. “There was toe-to-toe action. Me and Oscar Molina put on a great show for you guys, and I think that was a great opening for the Keith Thurman vs. Shawn Porter fight.”

Pick up a copy of David’s book, “Fighting Words: The Heart and Heartbreak of Boxing,” at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsamazon or internationally at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsworldwide. Send questions/comments via email at fightingwords1@gmail.com