In his first appearance in the ring since he lost his junior middleweight titles to Julian Williams last spring, Jarrett Hurd looked listless, fatigued, and frankly, just out of it.
After sleepwalking for nearly the entire fight, Hurd woke up in the final seconds of a 10-rounder, scoring a knockdown of a game Francisco Santana before settling for a unanimous decision win on the Danny Garcia-Ivan Redkach card at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
Two judges scored it 99-90, while the other had it 97-92, all for Hurd.
The size difference between the two fighters was plainly evident, Santana being a career welterweight who moved up to a catch weight of 156 pounds to face the hulking Hurd. Still, it was the smaller Santana who pursued Hurd around the ring throughout the fight.
While his punches did not have the greatest effect, Santana generally outworked Hurd, especially in the second half of the fight. When he wanted to, Hurd would land the far cleaner punches, snapping away Santana’s head with left hooks and right uppercuts.
Working with new trainer Kay Koroma, Hurd did not appear to show any new wrinkles in his game. For most of the night, he fought on autopilot and allowed Santana to set the pace. The crowd, displeased by Hurd’s reticence, began booing in Round 7.
“Hey, listen, the crowd didn’t like it,” Hurd said postfight as the spectators booed relentlessly, “but I did what I have to do.
“We didn’t want to go to toe-to-toe. We just wanted to win the rounds.”
Junior featherweights Stephen Fulton and Arnold Khegai turned in 12 closely contested tactical rounds, but it was Fulton who would have his hand raised at the end.
Two judges scored it 117-111, while the other had it 116-112, all for the Philadelphia-based Fulton.
It was a bull vs. matador kind of fight, with Fulton fighting intelligently off the back foot, working the jab, and whipping counter right hands to the come-forward Khegai, a Ukrainian of Korean descent. (Fulton has also held repeatedly throughout the fight, though the referee never issued a formal warning).
After a nip-and-tuck couple of rounds, Fulton (18-0, 8 KOs) began to take control in the second half of the fight, connecting on hard left and rights to the body. Khegai (16-1-1, 10 KOs) would have some success late, however, especially in Round 11, in which he reeled off consecutive clean blows.
Keeshawn Williams (7-0-1, 2 KOs) outpointed Gaku Takahashi (16-11-1, 8 KOs) over eight rounds in a welterweight bout. Takahashi’s jittery movement gave Williams some things to think about, but Williams landed the harder punches throughout the fight.
Lorenzo Simpson (6-0, 4 KOs) outpointed Antonio Hernandez (2-11-1) in a six-round middleweight bout. Hernandez troubled Simpson for the majority of the fight.
Neophyte heavyweight Steven Torres (2-0, 2 KOs) stopped Dakota Witkopf (1-2, 1 KO) with a straight right in the second round of a four-rounder.