Jarrett Hurd looking forward to getting back to championship form against Armando Resendiz

As former unified 154 lb titleholder Jarrett Hurd heads back into the ring this weekend on Showtime’s undercard of Brandon Figueroa vs Mark Magsayo, Hurd says he’s been keeping himself in the gym but that taking some time off after his 2021 loss to Luis Arias was probably a good thing.

“We’ve been staying ready,” Hurd said. “I had a lot of wars in the beginning of my career, so I think that a break wasn’t such a bad thing. I’ve been in some tough fights and I took the time to get myself together.”

In getting himself together, Hurd says he’s been putting in the work inside the gym with a new trainer, and expects for that new partnership to pay dividends inside of the ring.

“Training outside of my hometown just wasn’t a great thing for me,” said Hurd. “I had all my success there in training. Now I’m training with my new coach Andrew Council back in Maryland. We’re a great match and he allows me to be myself.

“I almost feel like I’m back to where I was before I was unified world champion. I’m back to the guy that people weren’t really believing in. I’m back to being the guy who has to go out there and prove every time why I was where I was. I had to go out there and beat guys that nobody thought I would beat. This time off made me fall back in love with the sport.”

Hurd goes on to say that he fully intends to campaign at middleweight from this point forward, and while he expects there to be a little bit of ring rust due to his time away, he’s still expecting handle business convincingly.

“Middleweight is where I’m going to stay at,” Hurd said. “They’re going to be saying that ‘Swift’ is back after Saturday. I’m going to shake off the cobwebs, but I’m going out there to dominate.

“I know he’s coming with the Mexican style, but they all say I have the Mexican style too. So it’s going to be a war for sure.”