Diego Pacheco’s path toward a super middleweight title shot will go through an opponent who gave a former champion a tough time in his last fight.
The Ring has confirmed that representatives for Pacheco and Trevor McCumby have reached an agreement for them to fight next. Their 168-pound bout will headline a card DAZN will stream sometime this summer, though the date and site of that event are still to be determined.
Big Fight Weekend’s Dan Rafael first mentioned McCumby as Pacheco’s next opponent Monday on X.
Mauricio Sulaiman, president of the WBC, announced Monday morning that Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing, Pacheco’s promoter, withdrew from the negotiating process for the WBC interim super middleweight title fight it ordered between Pacheco (23-0, 18 KOs) and Christian Mbilli (28-0, 23 KOs). The Cameroon-born, Quebec-based Mbilli would’ve been the most imposing opponent of Pacheco’s six-year pro career.
Mbilli is ranked No. 1 and Pacheco is rated No. 2 by both The Ring and the WBC. McCumby is not among The Ring’s top 10 contenders in the super middleweight division.
McCumby can punch, though, as former IBF 168-pound champ Caleb Plant learned when McCumby (28-1, 21 KOs) dropped him in the fourth round of their fan-friendly fight September 14 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Plant (23-2, 14 KOs) recovered from that fourth-round knockdown, opened a cut over McCumby’s left eye in the fifth round and stopped the previously unbeaten Yorkville, Illinois native in the ninth round on the Canelo Alvarez-Edgar Berlanga undercard.
Los Angeles’ Pacheco most recently unanimously outpointed Omaha’s Steven Nelson on January 25 at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas. Pacheco beat Nelson (20-1, 16 KOs) by the same score, 117-111, on all three cards in a 12-round main event DAZN streamed.
Keith Idec is a senior writer and columnist for The Ring. He can be reached on X @idecboxing.