Diego Pacheco faces Maciej Sulecki in the main event at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, CA on Saturday, August 31. Battling it out in front of his hometown crowd, the unbeaten super middleweight puts his WBC USA and WBO International titles on the line. The bout is scheduled for 12 rounds.
Pacheco (21-0 17 KOs) is currently No. 1-ranked with WBO and No. 4-ranked with WBC and IBF. With his goal to become the undisputed champion at 168 lbs, the rising contender once again named some of today’s prominent super middleweights he would like to face. The list includes Christian Mbilli, Edgar Berlanga and Erik Bazinyan.
The 23-year-old LA native previously mentioned the above competitors ahead of his fight with Shawn McCalman in April in Las Vegas.
Cameroonian-French Mbilli is fresh off the win by unanimous decision against Ukraine’s Sergiy Derevyanchenko in Quebec City, Canada in August. Puerto Rican contender Berlanga challenges Canelo Alvarez of Mexico in Las Vegas on September 14. Laval, Quebec-based Armenian Bazinyan faces Jaime Munguia in Glendale on September 20.
First things first. Diego Pacheco has to go through Maciej Sulecki (32-2 12 KOs), who he treats as “his last fight“. The 35-year-old former title challenger secured four straight victories, since his defeat by decision against Demetrius Andrade in June 2019 in his bid to land WBO middleweight belt.
“A win gets me that step closer,” Diego Pacheco said. “If I can do that, it hopefully gets me a fight with someone that’s in the top ten with me, and then become mandatory for one of the titles and next year, get that world title shot. I don’t feel like I have to show anything in particular. People have already seen that I can knock people out, that I can hurt people to the body, I can drop guys with uppercuts, hurt them with jabs. It’s more just getting the win and looking good, that’s what I train for, there’s no added pressure.”
“There’s Mbilli, Berlanga, Bazinyan. There’s a lot of good fighters out there that I would face and I’m ready for any of them. It’s hard for those guys to fight me because they think I’m just a young kid who hasn’t done much in the sport. But one fight at a time it’s getting to the point where they can’t deny me anymore and those fights will have to be made, and I have a promoter in Eddie Hearn and Matchroom who gets those fights lined up, so in due time I’ll be mixing it up with them all.”
“I think in five years from now I’ll be ruling the 168 lbs division, unifying it and ultimately becoming undisputed, that’s my goal. I want to dominate, keep the momentum going, keep knocking guys out and keep entertaining the fans.”
In the 10-round co-main event at super featherweight, Mexican Eduardo Nunez (26-1, 26 KOs) makes his U.S. debut against former title challenger Miguel Marriaga (31-7, 26 KOs) of Colombia. Among other bouts, Arturo Popoca (14-0-1, 8 KOs) defends his WBC Continental Americas super bantamweight title in a 10-rounder against fellow-Mexican Jesus Arechiga Valdez (21-1, 15 KOs).
Plus, Jamaican-born British Cheavon Clarke (9-0, 7 KOs) goes up against Nigerian-born Houston-based Efetobor Apochi (12-2, 12 KOs) in a 10-rounder at cruiserweight. In addition, interim WBC super flyweight champion Adelaida Ruiz (16-0-1, 8 KOs) of LA defends her title in a 10-rounder against Ginny Fuchs (3-0, 1 KOs) of Houston.