Unified super welterweight world champion will need six weeks of physical therapy and rehabilitation following surgery this week to repair a torn rotator cuff in his left shoulder.
Lara vs Hurd Highlights: PBC on Showtime - April 7, 2018
IBF/WBA 154-pound champion Jarrett Hurd expects to make a complete and speedy recovery from arthroscopic surgery he had on Monday to repair a torn rotator cuff in his left shoulder.
“Swift” Hurd said he will need six weeks of physical therapy and rehabilitation following the 30-minute operation he had at Howard University Hospital in Washington D.C., but he plans to fight later this year.
“Altogether it looks like there will be a two-month period before I can get back into the gym. I can have no activity for two weeks to allow the arm to heal a little bit,” said the native of Accokeek, Maryland.
“Then, I’ll begin therapy that will last maybe five or six weeks. It’s not really too frustrating because, at the end of the day, we still wanted to fight in the fall of this year. We’re still planning on fighting at least one more time, maybe November or December.”
Hurd noticed he had a problem in his shoulder in February, but went ahead with his training camp and fight with Erislandy Lara on April 7 in Las Vegas. He scored a unanimous decision in a thrilling 12-round performance that featured Hurd dropping Lara with a short left hook in the final minute of the fight.
“Knowing that this was a big opportunity for me and the fact that I wanted to become the top guy at 154 pounds, I started training January even though the fight was in April,” Hurd said. “By the end of February was when I started realizing that I had the injury. The pain was hindering me from doing certain things. Like during strength training, I couldn’t really do overhead exercises.
“When I wanted to do weights, this time, I had to transition earlier to the band exercises because the weights were bothering my shoulders. Thank God I have a cut man who is also a physician, Dr. Phillip Ragland, and being that we’re being [drug] tested, I was allowed to use cortisone shots and get through the training as well as to make it through the fight. Overall, we took three cortisone shots.”
Hurd said the pain “was never to the point where I was considering pulling out.” He didn’t experience any pain during the fight and thought it was best to get the problem fixed before his next fight.
“From a pain standpoint, the shoulder injury wasn’t really affecting me that much, but, you know, I don’t know if it restricted me in other ways. But I never want to make any excuses. We both put up a good fight and I got the victory in the ring that night and became a unified champion,” said Hurd.
“To me, this is something that I already knew that I had inside of me. I know there are fighters who would have pulled, but I never ever doubted myself. But me being able to beat a guy like Erislandy Lara fighting with a shoulder injury like I did, it really shows what I can do when I will myself through it.”
Hurd won the title with a ninth-round TKO over Tony Harrison in February 2017 and made his first defense against former champion Austin Trout, whom he defeated by 10th-round TKO in October.
Hurd is accustomed to fighting through adversity. He suffered a cut over his left eye against Trout due to head butts in the sixth round.
As a unified 154-pound champion, Hurd has plenty of options—a rematch with Lara, a match against Julian Williams or a unification against WBC champion Jermell Charlo—and now he has some time to think about them.
“Getting back into the ring was the plan anyway before the surgery,” he said. “I’m not really too concerned, because I’m not sitting out any longer than I had already planned. It can be a blessing in disguise. Things happen for a reason, and this gives my body some time for rest and recovery.”
For a closer look at Jarrett Hurd, check out his fighter page.
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