Jarrett Hurd withdraws from Julian Williams rematch

The planned December 14th rematch between IBF/WBA “Super” welterweight champion Julian Williams and former titleholder Jarrett Hurd is off. “Swift,” who exercised a rematch clause after his May defeat, has now “declined to go through with it” for unspecified reasons.

Williams (27-1-1, 16 KO), who authored one of the year’s biggest upsets when he overpowered Hurd in Fairfax, declined to criticize his erstwhile foe.

The conspiracy-driven among you may point fingers at Williams’ demands that all challengers participate in VADA testing, or perhaps Hurd’s profound bigness finally catching up to him. Either way, all we have is irresponsible speculation until we hear more.

There is some silver lining, though. PBC is “exploring” a clash between Williams and newly crowned WBA “regular” champion Erislandy Lara (26-3-3, 15 KO), who’s become exponentially more entertaining as the years went by. Definitely not the worst consolation prize imaginable. There’s also still the possibility of further unification with the winner of Tony Harrison-Jermell Charlo II, assuming they manage to re-book that within a reasonable timeframe.

As is, we’ve lost an excellent fight, but the possibility of equally interesting replacements remain.