The January 25th Danny Garcia vs. Ivan Redkach-led PBC on Showtime card is now a tripleheader. PBC today revealed that former unified super welterweight champion Jarrett Hurd will return in the co-feature against veteran Francisco Santana and unbeaten super bantamweights Stephen Fulton and Arnold Khegai will open the show in a WBO eliminator.
Hurd (23-1, 16 KO) appeared fairly well entrenched as the #1 super welterweight on the planet going into his May battle with Julian Williams, having defeated Tony Harrison, Austin Trout, and Erislandy Lara in successive appearances. He was expected to dominate “J-Rock,” whose previous title bid had ended in a disastrous knockout loss to Jermall Charlo, but Williams instead put Hurd on the deck and proceeded to dominate the majority of the fight en route to a decision win.
The two had intended to rematch on the 14th of this month, but Hurd withdrew for still-unrevealed reasons. Williams will defend his titles against Jeison Rosario one week prior.
“Just because I fell back, doesn’t mean I fell off,” said Hurd. “I’m back and excited to fight at Barclays Center for the third time. I’m bringing the storm back on January and I’m going to make a statement everyone is going to see. You’re not going to want to miss this fight and the best Jarrett Hurd anyone’s seen.”
Santana (25-7-1, 12 KO) scored the biggest win of his career last year when he upset Felix Diaz Jr. in the opening round of the WBC’s ill-fated welterweight tournament. A subsequent decision loss to Abel Ramos knocked the 33-year-old down to 1-3 in his last four.
“This is a great opportunity for me against a fighter like Jarrett Hurd,” said Santana. “When you get an opportunity like this, it’s hard to turn it down. My job is to rise to the occasion and have the best moment of my career on fight night. This is my Super Bowl. When I last fought at 154-pounds, I was basically self-trained. Now I have my coach Joseph Janik training me and I really think he’s the missing piece of the puzzle for me. I’m going to go in there and leave it all in the ring January 25.”
I genuinely cannot wait to see the size difference between these two.
Fulton (17-0, 8 KO) had been linked to the aforementioned Williams card, which would have made slightly more sense for the Philly native, but instead gets to ply his trade in Brooklyn. His three-fight 2019 campaign included a decision over veteran Paulus Ambunda. Khegai (16-0, 11 KO), meanwhile, went 2-0 this year and scored a decision win on ShoBox.
The two are ranked #8 and #2, respectively, by the WBO. The press release calls it an eliminator but doesn’t say “final,” so it’s not clear how #1 Albert Pagara factors into it. Either way, whoever wins has a crack at Emanuel Navarrete in his future.