Given the a number of of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} a man like Edgar Berlanga is incomes to combat Saul “Canelo” Alvarez subsequent month, the angling to land a Canelo combat is fervent.
Diego Pacheco, 23, will throw his hat within the ring Saturday night time on DAZN when the unbeaten tremendous middleweight meets former middleweight title contender Maciej Sulecki of Poland in Carson, California.
Possessing a 79-inch attain whereas standing 6-foot-4, Pacheco (21-0, 17 KOs) has the chance to grow to be the primary to cease Sulecki (32-2, 12 KOs) and step forward of the Canelo “subsequent” contenders.
That solid consists of the WBC’s top-ranked tremendous middleweight contender, Christian Mbilli, potential undisputed mild heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol or the winner of the looming IBF tremendous middleweight title combat between William Scull and Russia’s Vladimir Shishkin.
Pacheco is at present the No. 1 WBO contender, whereas being ranked fourth by the WBC and IBF.
“Sulecki has been in with [former middleweight champions] Demetrius Andrade and Daniel Jacobs and by no means been stopped. … He’s robust and sturdy,” ProBox TV analyst Chris Algieri mentioned on Monday’s episode of “High Tales.” “However Pacheco is tall, lengthy, creating shortly … huge arms, huge head, shortly maturing.
“I can see Canelo selecting him as a result of he’s so younger, like Felix Trinidad did with Fernando Vargas: ‘Get ‘em younger, earlier than he develops into what he’s going to be.’”
Pacheco is educated by Jose Benavidez Sr., the father-trainer of unbeaten former tremendous middleweight champion David Benavidez, who was pressured to go away the 168-pound division due to Alvarez’s disinterest in preventing the naturally larger foe.
On “High Tales,” Alvarez antagonist Paulie Malignaggi mentioned he expects Alvarez to equally keep away from Pacheco if he produces a convincing Saturday victory.
“If he appears to be like considerably beatable, exhibits deficiencies, then you definitely’re entering into Canelo’s wheelhouse,” Malignaggi mentioned. “You may see Canelo has been driving straightforward since [his 2022 loss in the] Bivol combat.”
Malignaggi says he’s impressed with Pacheco’s growth and tasks that he “can continue to grow; he has all of the instruments.”
Touchdown his personal DAZN principal occasion is testomony to that, however Pacheco stays too inexperienced at this hour to compete with Alvarez, and even Mbilli, in response to “High Tales” analyst Timothy Bradley Jr.
In two or extra years, that will likely be a unique story.
“Pacheco, in a pair years, will likely be actual harmful,” Algieri mentioned.
Lance Pugmire is BoxingScene’s senior U.S. author and an assistant producer for ProBox TV. Pugmire has coated boxing because the early 2000s, first on the Los Angeles Instances after which at The Athletic and USA In the present day. He gained the Boxing Writers’ Affiliation of America’s Nat Fleischer Award in 2022 for profession excellence.
