Notebook: Homecoming win can seal Pacheco's breakout year
Top Rank signs world titlist Foster; Cuadras nabs split decision over Guevara for interim junior bantamweight belt; Conor Benn update; Quick hits; Show and tell
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Super middleweight Diego Pacheco, one of boxing’s fastest-rising fighters, found himself suddenly pressed into the main event of a March card in Liverpool, England, when original headliner Callum Smith, a former super middleweight champion and current WBC light heavyweight mandatory challenger, was forced out due to an injury.
Pacheco shined in his biggest moment to that point, moving up the card into the main event and blowing out England’s Jack Cullen via fourth-round knockout.
In March, Pacheco, a Mexican-American, headlined in Monterrey, Mexico, and impressively knocked out Manuel Gallegos with a body shot in the fourth round.
Now, Pacheco is set to finish his 2023 campaign with another main event appearance, and he couldn’t be happier that the fight is at home in the Los Angeles area.
He will defend his pair of regional titles against by far his most notable opponent in former world title challenger Marcelo Coceres on the Matchroom Boxing card Saturday (DAZN, 8 p.m. ET) at the YouTube Theater in Inglewood, California.
“It’s so special to have a homecoming show,” Pacheco said this week. “It’s the most important fight of my career so far. It’s time for me to headline at home. I’ve headlined in the U.K. and in Mexico, so to be bringing everyone out to L.A. is surreal. I dreamt of this as a little kid and now I can’t wait to perform on Saturday and begin a whole new chapter in my career.
“To be doing this at 22 is cool. I thought maybe I would headline in a world title fight when I was 24 or 25. This weekend it’s the YouTube Theater. Hopefully, down the line it will be the SoFi Stadium. It’s a five-minute drive from my mom’s house, so it’s perfect to be having my first headline show there.”
Pacheco (19-0, 16 KOs) signed with Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn out of the amateurs and has passed every test he’s been given and done so impressively.
He feels he will be ready for major fights in the not too distant future and can’t help thinking about them.
“If Eddie told me I’m fighting (undisputed super middleweight champion) Canelo (Alvarez), I feel I would give him a good fight,” Pacheco said. “I want Edgar Berlanga next after this fight. I think I knock him out, cold.”
Before any of that, however, Coceres (32-5-1, 18 KOs), 32, of Argentina, appears to be a considerable step up for Pacheco. He’s been stopped just once, in the 11th round of a very close fight with then-WBO 168-pound titlist Billy Joe Saunders in 2019 at the then-Staples Center in Los Angeles.
Coceres also gave the unbeaten Berlanga, who now is also with Matchroom Boxing, his toughest fight, losing a competitive 10-round decision but also knocking Berlanga down for the only time in his career in 2021 on the Tyson Fury-Deontay Wilder II undercard at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
“I am always prepared for war,” Coceres said through an interpreter at this week’s news conference. “Pacheco is not going to have it easy at all. I have all this experience and the willingness to win this fight, and it’s an opportunity that when it came along, I was delighted to take it on.”
Pacheco said he is ready for whatever Coceres shows him.
“I feel Coceres is the toughest opponent on my resume yet. He’s been in a lot of good fights, but I feel I am a way better fighter,” Pacheco said. “I think my skills and hard work will outshine him and I am super confident in the work I have put in, the training camp we had, the sparring, everything. This is the biggest fight of my life, and I can’t wait to put on a show in front of my home fans.
“I’ve sparred with all the best guys at 160, 168 and 175 and they know what it is. I’m here, I am a special breed. I really feel that I have a God-given talent and with my hard work I feel that I am unstoppable. You guys have seen my fights. I’m getting better and stronger, and I am looking forward to keep doing those things against better opposition. Coceres is a great test for me on Saturday, and I just can’t wait to show everyone what I am about against someone as good as him. I had two great fights this year in the U.K. and Mexico. Now I get to do it here in my hometown. It’s super exciting.”
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Foster signs with Top Rank
WBC junior lightweight titlist O’Shaquie Foster has signed a multi-fight promotional contract with Top Rank and will have the first fight of the deal in early 2024, the company announced on Wednesday.
“O’Shaquie Foster is a supremely talented champion in the prime of his career,” Top Rank chairman Bob Arum said. “We are thrilled to welcome him to Top Rank, and I eagerly await his next world title defense.”
Foster was a promotional free agent when he faced mandatory challenger Rocky Hernandez on Oct. 28 in Cancun, Mexico, in a fight that Matchroom Boxing won a purse bid for and placed in Cancun, Mexico.
Foster (21-2, 12 KOs), 30, of Orange, Texas, went to Hernandez’s home country and, trailing on two scorecards going into the 12th round, scored two knockdowns and rallied for a dramatic knockout to retain his 130-pound title for the first time.
“I’m excited to be part of the Top Rank and ESPN family,” said Foster, who has won 11 fights in a row. “Top Rank has shaped the careers of many of the greatest fighters whom I look up to even to this day, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to fight on ESPN. I can’t wait to step into the ring and show that I am the best fighter in the world.”
The signing opens the possibility of fight with two of the other top fighters in the division who are also with Top Rank: a unification bout with WBO titlist Emanuel Navarrete and former titleholder Oscar Valdez.
Cuadras wins interim title
Former WBC junior bantamweight titlist Carlos Cuadras (42-5-1, 28 KOs), 35, won a split decision over Mexican countryman Pedro Guevara (40-4-1, 22 KOs), 34, to claim the vacant WBC interim junior bantamweight title Friday on a card that was part of the annual WBC convention in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
Cuadras prevailed 116-110 and 115-111 while one judge had it 115-111 for Guevara, a former WBC junior flyweight titlist, whose 10-fight winning streak was snapped.
Cuadras dropped Guevara twice, first with a left hook to the chin in the second round. In the sixth round, he laded a shot that forced Guevara to touch his right glove to the mat for an official knockdown.
The win puts Cuadras in position to eventually challenge 115-pound champion Juan Francisco Estrada (44-3, 28 KOs), 33, of Mexico, who has already defeated him twice. He stopped Cuadras in the 11th round in a 2020 title defense and won a decision (114-113 on all three cards) in a 2017 title eliminator.
The interim belt was approved due to Estrada’s inactivity, having not boxed since last December and with no fight set.
BetUS Boxing Show
If you missed the BetUS Boxing Show live at 1 p.m. ET on Friday on YouTube, please check out the replay (and also subscribe to the YouTube channel). We previewed and picked three Saturday bouts: super middleweight up-and-comer Diego Pacheco against former title challenger Marcelo Coceres, which headlines the Matchroom Boxing card in Inglewood, California; the Nick Ball-Isaac Dogboe WBC featherweight eliminator that is on the Queensberry Promotions card in Manchester, England; and Franck Petitjean’s European junior welterweight title defense against top prospect Adam Azim in the Boxxer main event in Wolverhampton, England. We also took viewer questions and comments and discussed the latest boxing news! Please check out the show here:
Quick hits
Although Conor Benn is still awaiting his appeal to be heard by the British Boxing Board of Control related to his failed drug tests that caused a planned middleweight fight with Chris Eubank Jr. (33-3, 24 KOs), 34, of England, on Oct. 8, 2022 to be canceled during fight week, Benn promoter Matchroom Boxing and Eubank promoter Wasserman Boxing have been working on a deal to stage the bout Feb. 3. However, a source involved told Fight Freaks Unite that the deal was “falling apart” over money on the Benn side. Benn (22-0, 14 KOs), 26, who was out of the ring for 17 months, was licensed in Florida and returned on Sept. 23 to outpoint Rodolfo Orozco over 10 rounds in a junior middleweight bout.
Weights from Los Angeles for the Matchroom Boxing card Saturday on DAZN (8 p.m. ET): Diego Pacheco 167.8 pounds, Marcelo Coceres 167; Mayerlin Rivas 121.8, Erika Cruz 122 (for Rivas’ WBC women’s junior featherweight title); Khalid Yafai 117.6, Jonathan Rodriguez 118; Marc Castro 131.4, Gonzalo Fuenzalida 132.8; Jalan Walker 131.2, Jorge Alberto Villegas 131.6; Criztec Bazaldua 136.6, Pedro Angel Cruz 138.8.
Per the California State Athletic Commission, the official purses for Saturday’s Matchroom Boxing card: Diego Pacheco $62,500 (though, per source, his guarantee is $125,000), Marcelo Coceres $37,500; Mayerlin Rivas $20,000, Erika Cruz $25,000; Khalid Yafai $67,500, Jonathan Rodriguez $15,000; Marc Castro $25,000, Gonzalo Fuenzalida $12,500; Jalan Walker $5,000, Jorge Alberto Villegas $8,000; Criztec Bazaldua $6,000, Pedro Angel Cruz $4,000.
Weights from Wolverhampton, England for the Boxxer card Saturday on Sky Sports in the U.K. and Peacock in the U.S. (3 p.m. ET): Franck Petitjean 140 pounds, Adam Azim 139 (for Petitjean’s European junior welterweight title); Matteo Signani 158, Tyler Denny 159 (for Sugnani’s European middleweight title); Richard Riakporhe 202, Dylan Bregeon 203; Rhys Edwards 127, Brad Foster 126; Nyall Berry 123, Darwing Martinez 125; Tion Gibbs 139, Efstathios Antonas 139; Dylan Cheema 137, Robin Zamora 139; Gully Powar 127, Engel Gomez 131.
Weights from Manchester, England for the Queensberry Promotions card Saturday on TNT Sports in the U.K. and ESPN+ in the U.S. (2 p.m. ET): Denzel Bentley 160 pounds, Nathan Heaney 159.4 (for Bentley’s British middleweight title); Nick Ball 125, Isaac Dogboe 125.2 (WBC featherweight eliminator); Liam Davies 121.1, Vincenzo La Femina 121.4 (for Davies’ European junior featherweight title); Solomon Dacres 246.2, Michael Webster 246.4; Ekow Essuman 146.3, Harry Scarff 145.6 (for Essuman’s British and Commonwealth welterweight titles); Hannah Rankin 153.4, Ema Kozin 153.7 (for vacant WBC women’s junior middleweight title); Nathaniel Collins 125.1, Zak Miller 125.6 (for Collins’ British and Commonwealth featherweight titles); Amaar Akbar 145.8, Christian Lopez 141.1; Callum Thompson 136.9, Joshua Ocampo 136.
Featherweight Lee McGregor (12-1-1, 9 KOs), 26, suffered an undisclosed training injury, which has forced his all-British fight with Isaac Lowe (23-2-3, 7 KOs), 29, to be postponed, Wasserman Boxing announced. They were due to fight in the main event on the U.K.’s Channel 5 on Dec. 1 at Toughsheet Community Stadium in Bolton, England. The show, however, will go on with heavyweight Nathan Gorman (19-2, 13 KOs), 27, of England, taking on Bohdan Myronets (7-1, 4 KOs), 29, of Latvia, in the new main event. Cruiserweight Roman Fury, a younger brother of heavyweight champion Tyson Fury, will also be on the card. Wasserman Boxing said McGregor-Lowe will be rescheduled for “early 2024.”
Show and tell
When Hall of Fame former welterweight champions Felix Trinidad and the late Pernell Whitaker finally met in 1999, Whitaker, the former pound-for-pound king, was at the end of his brilliant career and took a one-sided decision loss to Trinidad, who retained his title. Whitaker would fight just once more while Trinidad would go on to some of his biggest victories. But what would a Whitaker-Trinidad fight have looked like four years earlier? That’s when Main Events, Whitaker’s longtime promoter, won a purse bid for a Trinidad mandatory defense and brought him to HBO for a doubleheader on which both legends faced separate opponents in defenses in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
Whitaker knocked out Jake Rodriguez in the sixth round in the headliner and Trinidad easily handled Larry Barnes via fourth-round knockout in the co-feature. Unfortunately, Main Events and Trinidad promoter Don King could not make a deal for the unification showdown both fighters wanted, and when the fight finally took place years later Whitaker was a shell of his once-great self. But the doubleheader they co-starred on took place on Nov. 18, 1995 — 28 years ago on Saturday. Here is a beautiful site poster signed by Whitaker and Trinidad in my collection.
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Pacheco: Ed Mulholland/Matchroom Boxing; Cuadras-Guevara: Alma Montiel/WBC; Petitjean-Azim: Lawrence Lustig/Boxxer
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Once again I gotta say your Notebooks are my favorite, now I gotta say I miss the Friday Chats and is there any chance of a resurrection....that would be fire!!