Diego Pacheco quickly found a home with his right hand Saturday night.
And when he just missed with the weapon, only grazing Maciej Sulecki on the top of the head, Pacheco surgically went around the Polish fighter's elbow and blasted him with a punishing liver shot. The punch instantly crumbled Sulecki to the canvas in the fetal position, cementing a sensational sixth-round knockout for Pacheco at the Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, California, and live on DAZN.
"The body shot and that's all she wrote," Pacheco told DAZN's Chris Mannix of his KO punch. "Honestly, I didn't even land it that hard so I didn't think it was going to be over but when I saw him fall I could tell he wasn't getting up."
With the victory, the undefeated 23-year-old Pacheco (22-0, 18 KOs) remains the mandatory challenger for Canelo Alvarez's WBO super middleweight title, though Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn told Mannix that he'd like to make Pacheco vs. Jaime Munguia in the interim before such a championship shot comes to fruition.
Pacheco certainly passed a stern test in defeating the rugged veteran Sulecki on Saturday night and his victory came via a measured attack.
Though Sulecki took the first round as the more active fighter, touching Pacheco's body, the South Central Los Angeles product quickly used his 11-inch reach advantage to connect with a straight right jab. Those jabs later turned to hooks, followed by a crunching right uppercut that Pacheco used to buckle Sulecki's knees in the fifth round, piling on more pressure with a flurry.
Sulecki survived that round but wouldn't make it past the sixth when Pacheco ended the show on the riveting liver shot that he snuck in under the Polish fighter's elbow.
Here's how the entire fight and Pacheco-Sulecki main card went.