A home area crowd at George Mason University, the Washington Redskins band to accompany Hurd to the ring and a national television audience allowed everything to be in place for Hurd to move on to another title unification in the fall against the winner of June's rematch between Tony Harrison and Jermell Charlo.
Julian Williams disagreed, but despite Williams's talent, he had failed in his only test against elite competition when Jermall Charlo had bullied him and knocked him out in five rounds, and even though Williams hadn't lost since he hadn't excited anyone in his victories.
Williams changed the narrative and ruined the blueprint for PBC as Williams won a close, but unanimous decision to lift the two titles from Hurd, disappointing the crowd and observers that thought that Hurd might be the special fighter to burst through the dam to lead a junior middleweight division that had plenty of champions, but no dominant forces.
After this one, which will deserve consideration for the fight of the year, the division still lacks the dominant force and despite the excellent performance by Williams, he'll have to defend his titles a few times to begin the process of being thought of as such.
Williams was expected to start fast and attempt to hold on to the lead against Hurd, who has been noted to take a few rounds to fire on all cylinders and did so, but the surprise was just how fast as he dropped Hurd in the second round although Hurd rose and was not seriously hurt.
Williams allowed Hurd to rally in the middle rounds and I thought that Williams was able to do just enough to not allow Hurd into a smooth rhythm and make a run where he grabbed a few rounds in a row.
Every time that I started to think "this is where Hurd makes his move", Williams would change the momentum and fight the naturally larger Hurd off enough to keep him at less than optimum power.
I had Williams winning 115-112 (7-5 with a knockdown) and I could see a draw at 6-6 in rounds, but even then the knockdown would have made a difference.
I mention this as ESPN scored Hurd a one-point winner, which I fail to see as accurate, but I think I see the reason why that score was their score.
ESPN's Dan Rafael lives in the area (the DMV for us locals), was in the arena, and might have been swayed by the atmosphere.
That can happen to any of us, no judgment from me, just a possible reason for why ESPN scored Hurd the victor.
This fight was good enough that it should bring a rematch (it was far better than Harrison-Charlo, which is an immediate rematch) soon, but it brings to mind two thoughts.
The first of these covers "Marinating" a term usually used in cooking, but one that has become often used in boxing after Bob Arum used it for building interest in an eventual featherweight fight between rising young stars Yuriorkis Gamboa and Juan Manuel Lopez as a reason to wait to make the fight.
The plan backfired when Lopez was knocked out by Orlando Salido, was never the same fighter again and the big match between Gamboa and Lopez never happened, resulting in the derisive term "Marinating" for a fight that needed to be made and for various reasons wasn't.
The PBC almost revels in the fact that the majority of their stars fight only once or twice a year and often use one or both fights in borderline squash matches as their fighters often prefer the dollars guaranteed for those lesser fights rather than the higher risk fights that could bring higher rewards.
That strategy which often builds for a long-overdue fight, yet often, isn't one that fight fans cannot wait for, backfired in the case of Jermell Charlo-Jarrett Hurd.
Now to be fair, last night's upset was a mandatory defense for Hurd, but Charlo's upset loss to Tony Harrison was another case of continuing to have a fighter defend against a series of lesser contenders rather than fighting the best.
PBC has done this far too often since their opening as a promotion, most notably with WBA champion Keith Thurman, who tends to fight two lesser contenders before an event that is far more hyped than it truly deserves such as Thurman's fight with Danny Garcia, but their recent losses in the junior middleweight division, where they control three of the four titles (WBO champion Jaime Munguia is with DAZN/Golden Boy) shows the dangers of marinating.
After all, any meat will go bad in the marinating process, should you allow it to sit too long.
The other thought is this- could it be that the PBC has a group of fighters in the division that doesn't stand out above each other, can make interesting fights no matter the combination and the winners come down to the individual matchups and styles?
Look at it this way- Jarrett Hurd bullies and hammers out Tony Harrison, Jermall Charlo (Now at 160 pounds) knocks out Julian Williams, Jermell Charlo dusts Erickson Lubin (who has the punch to beat any of these guys and the chin to lose to any as well), Harrison defeats Jermell Charlo, Williams outworks Hurd.
I had hopes that Hurd was special and might emerge as the best of this bunch and I thought that Williams might have been before his loss to Jermall Charlo (I picked him to win), but I'm beginning to believe that the PBC controlled division simply has a handful of good fighters that have different skills that will enable them to defeat some and be vulnerable to others.
That recipe can make good fights such as last night's Williams-Hurd match, but it'll mean that no one or two fighters will stand out among the pack and that means that the title fights in the division will never be able to be built as a true super fight.
Since these guys are all equal, the promotion might be better suited to encourage these guys (and the veteran Erislandy Lara) to be more active and hopefully one or two will emerge as the best.
Otherwise, the titles will continue to be swapped around without a superstar and lesser tv ratings.
In the other fights on the card, junior welterweight Mario Barrios impressively snuffed out Juan Jose Velasco with a right to the body in the second round.
Barrios appears to be the young contender representing PBC in the suddenly red hot 140-pound division and could be a mandatory contender for one of the champions shortly.
Matt Korobov appeared to have won a majority decision over Immanuel Aleem as that result was announced in the ring.
Aleem rallied late in the ten rounder to make things interesting, but my score of 97-93 for Korobov seemed in line for the most part.
About ten minutes later, the announcement was made that the announcement was incorrect and the result was actually a majority draw, which was a borderline Hamburglar appearance.
I thought Korobov was the clear victor.
In the boxing challenge, I gained two points from the Mario Barrios KO to Ramon Malpica's one to move the challenge to 118-101.
This post ran longer than I planned, so I'll be writing a separate post later on the ESPN card from Tucson, Arizona.
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