By Keith Idec

Before they fought Saturday night, Jarrett Hurd didn’t expect Erislandy Lara to hit him harder than any of his previous opponents.

Hurd considered Tony Harrison the most powerful puncher he had faced in any of his first 21 professional fights. He told BoxingScene.com that he didn’t anticipate Lara being stronger than Harrison, who lost to Hurd by ninth-round technical knockout, and predicted Lara’s power would rate a 7½ on a scale of 1 to 10.

Lara changed Hurd’s mind during their back-and-forth fight, which Hurd won by split decision at The Joint inside Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas.

Hurd doesn’t think Lara hurt him at any point, but the IBF/IBO/WBA 154-pound champion admitted afterward that the smaller Lara got his attention during their title unification fight.

“I ain’t gonna lie,” Hurd told a group of reporters at ringside. “Lara’s got some little bit of pop. He has hit me the hardest I’ve ever been hit. You know, he caught me with a solid shot somewhere in the middle rounds. I’m not sure what round it was, but out of all the fighters I’ve fought, he had the most pop out of all of them.”

Nothing Lara landed prohibited Hurd from coming forward, but the most noticeable flush punch from Lara was a left uppercut with just under a minute to go in the sixth round.

“I wouldn’t say [I was] hurt,” Hurd said. “He caught me with a good shot. It buzzed me a little bit. It was a shot I didn’t see. I think it was an uppercut. And I had my hands high and it came from under, and I didn’t see that one. But I didn’t feel dazed. I just felt like, ‘Wow! That was a good shot. Watch out.’ ”

Lara (25-3-2, 14 KOs), who’ll turn 35 on Wednesday, also impressed Hurd (22-0, 15 KOs) by committing more to fighting toe-to-toe than he had done in any of his previous fights against top opposition. The 6-feet-1 Hurd stands four inches taller than Lara and was heavier when they entered the ring, but that didn’t stop Lara from exchanging regularly with Hurd during their compelling, competitive bout.

“He showed he does have heart,” Hurd said, “and he’s not just the type of fighter that’s gonna try to fight and score points. He knows when he’s in there if he needs to pick it up, if he don’t need to pick it up. And he showed that.”

Hurd also walked away from their difficult fight feeling as though Lara, while past his physical prime, still can win at the elite level.

“He put up a great fight,” Hurd said. “It seemed like, to me, he got a lot left. We saw the best Lara.”

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.