Super middleweight contender Diego Pacheco (21-0, 18 KOs) knocked out ring veteran Marcelo Coceres (32-6-1, 18 KOs) with a big right uppercut to the head on Saturday night in their headliner on DAZN at the YouTube Theater in Inglewood, California. The time of the stoppage was at 2:53 of round nine.
Pacheco was mostly fighting defensively, jabbing, pulling back ala Shakur Stevenson, and doing a lot of holding.
It wasn’t particularly interesting to watch until the eighth round, when Pacheco caught the 32-year-old Coceres with a right to the jaw that sent him reeling backwards against the ropes. Pacheco then unloaded with a series of bone-crunching shots to the head.
Live boxing results will be shown below.
– Erika Cruz (17-2, 3 KOs) outworked WBA female super bantamweight champion Mayerlin Rivas (17-5-3, 11 KOs), beating her by a ten round majority decision.
Cruz put nonstop pressure on the 33-year-old Rivas, forcing her up against the ropes and throwing a massive amount of punches in each rounds. The judges’ scores were 98-92, 97-93, and 95-95.
Rivas landed some beautiful counter shots in each rounds, but there wasn’t enough of them to compete with the high output from Cruz.
– In a surprising outcome, bantamweight Jonathan Rodriguez (17-1, 7 KOs) crushed Kal Yafai (27-2, 15 KOs) in a first round knockout. The 34-year-old Yafai hit the canvas twice and was finished off at 2:17 of the round.
The 24-year-old Rodriguez nailed the former WBA super flyweight champion Yafai with a looping right to the head that sent him stumbling and almost falling. When Yafai regained his feet, he was trapped against the ropes.
Rodriguez then hit him with several hard shots to the head, resulting in the referee Thomas Taylor, stepping in and halting the fight. After the contest, Yafai said this was his last fight and he’d be retiring.
– Lightweight prospect Marc Castro (11-0, 8 KOs) defeated Gonzalo Fuenzalida (12-3, 3 KOs) by a seventh round TKO. Referee Ray Corona waived it off in the seventh round after Castro teed off with a storm of unanswered shots against the painfully slow and easy-to-hit 27-year-old Fuenzalida. The fight was stopped at 2:31 of the seventh. This fight wasn’t even sporting, as was such a mismatch. Castro looked decent, but not at the level of some of the talents at 135.
Crafty super middleweight Marcelo Conceres (32-5-1, 18 KOs) will be going up against the unbeaten Eddie Hearn-promoted fighter Diego Pacheco (19-0, 16 KOs) tonight in the headliner on DAZN at the YouTube Theater in Inglewood, California. This is a tough one for the 22-year-old Pacheco, who needs a solid victory to continue his march to a world title.
Fights on DAZN
Diego Pacheco vs. Marcelo Coceres
Mayerlin Rivas vs. Erika Cruz
Kal Yafai vs. Jonathan Rodriguez
Marc Castro vs. Gonzalo Fuenzalida
Tonight’s Pacheco vs. Coceres event starst at 8 pm ET on DAZN.
Pacheco facing crafty veteran
“He’s a body puncher. He’s not a volume body puncher, but he knocked Cullen out with a body shot and knocked Gallegos down with a body shot,” said Chris Mannix to DAZN Boxing show.
“That left hook to the body from Diego Pacheo is starting to become a big-time weapon in his arsenal. I don’t think he’s ready for a world title fight yet and won’t be ready until the tail end of next year; he is a full-blown contender.
“That brings me to Coceres, who is the most accomplished guy on Diego Pacheco’s resume. He’s a former world title challenger. He was a round and a half from beating Billy Joe Saunders back in 2019.
“He knocked down Edgar Berlanga in 2021. He was 1-2 last year, but both of those fighters for Coceres came against undefeated fighters. So take that into consideration. Four of his five losses have come against undefeated fighters. What kind of challenge do you think Coceres for Pacheco?”
“A big one because this is the type of guy that has been in there with the top-level opposition and big and big punchers,” said Sergio Mora about the 32-year-old Coceres. “Like you said. Saunders, he went eleven rounds with him in a fight that he was possibly winning. There you go. He was winning, and then he got stopped in the championship round, so he wasn’t ready for that.
“Against Berlanga, a big, strong boogeyman at 168, he was able to drop and hurt him. He had him hurt in that round [nine], and if there was ten seconds more in that round, we would have been talking about the upset of the year.
“That’s the type of fighter because the thing about Conceres. He doesn’t come to win rounds. He comes to win the fight. He’ll hang in the pocket, move around the ring, he’ll get angles, he’ll time you, and then he’s going to look for an overhand right.
“Another thing is Coceres knows how to throw that right hand to the body. So tall fighters like Pacheco, who are 6’4”, that’s exactly what you have to do. You have to stab them in the gut. That way, they start bending down, making themselves smaller. That’s when you come over the guard and the top with lefts and rights.
“He’s a very sneaky fighter, Conceres is, and he has power. So he has a little bit of everything, and he’s this close to being a world champion [from his fight with Billy Joe Saunders in 2019]. He’s one upset away from being a world champion.
Coceres offers different style of Pacheco
“Diego Pacheco isn’t on a world championship level, but he’s being set up for it. This is a perfect opportunity for Conceres and Pacheco. That’s why it’s a hell of a match-up, it’s a hell of a fight, and we’ll be there,” said Mora.
“I like the selection of Coceres for this fight. It’s a different style from what he’s faced, and that has been the philosophy from Matchroom in recent fights to give Pacheco different looks,” said Mannix.
“While he had a tall, rangy guy in Cullen, a tall, physical guy in Gallegos, he gets a little more of a crafty guy in Coceres. He’s a little bit on the smaller side. Coceres is only about 5’11”, 5’11 1/2″, so that is going to be a little bit of an adjustment for Pacheco after facing guys who were right around his eyeliner in his last two fights.
“I agree with you. I think Cocres is going to be very difficult to track down in this fight. He’s going to throw punches from angles, he’s going to move a lot and is going to have a do-or-die attitude because, for Coceres, this really is do-or-die for him.
“He started out his career at 28-0-1. He’s 4-5 in his last nine fights. He knows that at 32 years old, he knows this is his last chance to put himself at that world championship level. So, I think we’re going to get the best from Coceres, who got a comeback win in May as he prepared for this fight.
“He’s going to be relatively sharp going into it. I just love the potential challenge out there for Pacheco. I think he eventually gets to him because Pacheco’s power is legit, and I think he’s going to wear Coceres down in those middle rounds and get a stoppage. But I think that this is exactly what Pacheco, who is still just 22, needs at this point in his career,” said Mannix.
Prediction for Pacheco vs. Coceres
Pacheco will knockout Coceres by the eighth round.