By Keith Idec
LOS ANGELES – Jarrett Hurd knows first-hand how hard Tony Harrison hits.
Hurd felt Harrison’s power when they fought for the vacant IBF junior middleweight championship in February 2017. Hurd was winning a close fight when he dropped and stopped a fading Harrison in the ninth round of that title fight in Birmingham, Alabama.
Hurd has since edged Erislandy Lara by split decision and added the WBA and IBO belts to his collection. He’ll pay close attention Saturday night when Harrison attempts to overcome that devastating defeat in another title fight.
The undefeated Hurd considers Harrison a live underdog against unbeaten Jermell Charlo (31-0, 15 KOs), who’ll defend his WBC 154-pound championship versus Harrison (27-2, 21 KOs) at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
“Listen, one thing people don’t understand and know is Tony Harrison has some crack,” Hurd told BoxingScene.com. “He can punch and, you know, he wasn’t able to land as clean a shot as Lara was on me. But I could feel his punches throughout the fight more than I did with Lara. Tony Harrison is a slick boxer, man. If he just has the gas in his tank in the later rounds, it can be an interesting matchup.”
Harrison’s conditioning is widely viewed as the key to him truly testing Houston’s Charlo in their 12-round title fight.
“That’s the only thing that gets him to lose his fights,” Hurd said. “He does well in the beginning, but he starts to fade as the fights go on. If he [is] in good shape and he can fight in the later rounds, who knows what happens?”
Whatever occurs, Hurd is certain Charlo has taken Harrison as a true threat to his title reign, unblemished record and unification fight against Hurd in 2019.
Hurd noticed Charlo tried too hard to knock out Austin Trout in his last fight, a 12-rounder Charlo won by majority decision June 9 at Staples Center in Los Angeles. The Accokeek, Maryland, native suspects Charlo was trying to out-shine his performance versus Trout (31-5, 17 KOs), who was stopped by Hurd for the first time in his career when they fought 14 months ago at Barclays Center.
“I know for a fact he’s not overlooking him,” Hurd said of Charlo. “He probably overlooked Austin Trout from me getting the stoppage over him. And he went out there and saw that the fight wasn’t as easy. You know, he was trying a little too hard. He was trying to [out-do] my performance and you could see the results – him loading up on the shots and things like that. He was aiming for a big knockout, to impress everyone over my performance.
“And I think he learned from that fight. So, I think this fight he’s not gonna go out there and do that, try to out-do my performance. He’s gonna take his time and do what he knows, and I think he'll have a better performance.”
Hurd (23-0, 16 KOs) and Harrison have become friends since their fight. Hurd still wants Charlo to win because he wants to become the first opponent to beat Charlo in what will be a lucrative title unification match for both boxers.
“Oh, you know I’m rooting for [Charlo] to win,” Hurd said. “Tony Harrison is my guy. We’re good friends, man. We talk on the phone for a minute, and things like that. But I kind of have to say I want Jermell to win, because I wanna be the one to beat him.”
FOX will broadcast Charlo-Harrison as the co-featured fight of a tripleheader Saturday night (8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT).
Jermell Charlo’s twin brother, Jermall Charlo (27-0, 21 KOs), will make the first defense of his WBC interim middleweight title against Russian southpaw Matt Korobov (28-1, 14 KOs) in the 12-round main event. The telecast will start with a 10-round heavyweight encounter that’ll match Dominic Breazeale (19-1, 17 KOs), of Eastvale, California, against Carlos Negron (20-1, 16 KOs), of Villalba, Puerto Rico.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.
