LAS VEGAS – Diego Pacheco needs lessons in victory like Saturday’s to become a world champion, and Steven Nelson was an obliging foe in bringing immense late pressure that tested the aspiring No. 1 super middleweight contender from South Central Los Angeles.
“These are the fights you learn from the most,” said Pacheco, 23-0, in the ring afterward. “I had to dig deep. The guy [Nelson] has a tough chin.”
Pacheco, 23, headed into the 10th round with a wide lead that would ultimately be affirmed by the three 117-111 scores that judges Tim Cheatham, Max DeLuca and David Sutherland awarded him in the unanimous decision triumph.
But Nelson, 36, longing for a night like this after developing for so long in the shadow of four-division champion and gym mate Terence Crawford, let loose an inspired rally in the final two rounds, landing multiple shots on Pacheco and bringing The Cosmopolitan crowd to its feet as an outcome that seemed a foregone conclusion was now a tooth-and-nail battle, with Crawford roaring support and instruction to Nelson.
“He was getting the best of the fight,” said Nelson, 20-1, when asked what provoked his final act before his first defeat arrived.
Pacheco promoter Eddie Hearn knows how boxing matchmaking can work and candidly admitted, “Maybe those last two rounds give others hope,” in reference to the top-five super middleweight contenders, such as Christian Mbilli, Edgar Berlanga and Caleb Plant, that Pacheco said he now seeks.
“Any of those guys … I’ve never ducked anybody,” Pacheco said.
Relying on 6in of height, nearly 4in of reach and 13 fewer years of tread on his tires, Pacheco was willing to clash with every bit of the pent-up passion Nelson fostered to reach the occasion.
Nelson vowed that a patient, wise approach would increase his chance of an upset against the WBO’s No. 1 contender to three-belt super middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez.
The pair spent two rounds in a feeling-out mode, with Pacheco tossing his jab and Nelson finding a late left in the second.
Pacheco did more pawing with his left than letting his right hand rip in the early going as Nelson tried to figure how to get inside.
Pacheco marked Nelson by the left eye with a right hand in the fourth and smiled following consecutive rights on Nelson in the fifth.
“I planned for a everything except getting cut, and when that blood got into my eye I was seeing yellow,” Nelson said.
Pacheco grazed Nelson with uppercuts in the fifth and sixth, unearthing a potential opening to exploit. He then smacked Nelson in the belly with a right.
Whatever cautiousness existed in Pacheco that related to his respect for the veteran faded in the seventh and eighth as he finally unleashed a variety of whipping rights and lefts, and sought to hurt the older man by sending powerful uppercuts at him.
“I saw him coming in, was catching him, sticking to my jab and the game plan,” Pacheco said. “I hit him with some good shots.”
That transformation showed why Pacheco is No. 1 – long, powerful, skilled and able to impose his physical advantages upon the more diminutive.
Pacheco smacked Nelson with his fiercest right hand to open the 10th round, then followed that with three more hurtful blows that had the proud veteran reeling, left only to send a few more desperate advances to back up his pre-fight pledge to never cave.
He fully affirmed that over the last couple rounds.
Pacheco accepted the lesson and the triumph.
“Now we move on to the next fight,” he said.
Lance Pugmire is BoxingScene’s senior U.S. writer and an assistant producer for ProBox TV. Pugmire has covered boxing since the early 2000s, first at the Los Angeles Times and then at The Athletic and USA Today. He won the Boxing Writers’ Association of America’s Nat Fleischer Award in 2022 for career excellence.
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