Darius Fulghum handed Diego Pacheco his first professional loss by taking away the space the taller man needed to box. Fulghum walked Pacheco down behind his jab and landed the cleaner punches inside to win a 12-round unanimous decision at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, California.

Two judges scored it 115–112, and the third had it 114–113 for Fulghum, who improved to 16–1–1. Pacheco fell to 26–1. Fulghum won the WBC Silver and WBO International super middleweight titles in a bout that also served as a WBA final eliminator.

Fulghum’s Jab Keeps Pacheco Backing Up

Pacheco landed a clean right hand and a body shot in a close second round, but Fulghum was already making him work at a distance he didn’t want. Fulghum pressed inside and landed left hands to the body and head as Pacheco tried to tie him up. In the third, a stiff Fulghum jab opened a cut below Pacheco’s right eye.

Fulghum kept Pacheco from getting set in the fourth, using feints and changing angles to get his jab through. He followed with one of his best rounds in the fifth, catching punches on his gloves and coming back with right hands that landed flush on Pacheco’s chin. Pacheco could still get through with his right hand, but he spent too much time backing up to build on those shots.

Pacheco had a better finish to the sixth, forcing Fulghum back after spending much of the round giving ground. That spell was brief. Fulghum was back on the front foot in the seventh, finding Pacheco’s swelling left eye with the jab. By the eighth, Fulghum was again staying close enough to keep Pacheco from extending his punches.
Fulghum Finishes Strong After Deduction
The closest the fight came to turning late was in the ninth. Referee Ray Corona deducted a point from Fulghum for punches to the back of the head, a call some observers questioned because Pacheco was dipping as the punches came in. Pacheco picked up his pace and won the round on the Boxing News 24 card, making it a 10–8 round and cutting Fulghum’s lead to two points.

Fulghum took the initiative back in the tenth. Pacheco’s face was swollen and his mouth was bleeding as Fulghum backed him up and landed cleanly. The same pattern held through the final two rounds. Pacheco never put together the sustained rally he needed, and the fight went the distance without a knockdown.

Boxing News 24 scored it 116–111 for Fulghum. The point deduction made the official result especially tight on the 114–113 card, but Fulghum gave the judges three strong rounds after it. Whenever Pacheco found a little room to punch, Fulghum went back to his jab and made him give it up again.

Listening to Deontay Wilder talk about his upcoming fight, you would almost think it was still 2019, and he was an unbeaten heavyweight champion warning a smaller man away from danger. Instead, the 41-year-old is acting as if Jai Opetaia made a mistake skipping a tune-up bout before their December 11 meeting on the Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua undercard in Cardiff.

When Shelly Finkel called with the terms for the ten-round heavyweight bout on Netflix, Wilder accepted quickly despite having other options. Speaking on Playbook Boxing, Wilder suggested Zuffa Boxing pushed the unbeaten cruiserweight into the deep end faster than his own camp wanted. “I’m sure that if it was up to him personally and his team, they would have went somewhere else,” said Wilder.

What makes that claim hard to take seriously is how little Wilder knew about his opponent before signing, admitting he had never heard of Opetaia and only recently watched a few highlights. Even after seeing the tape, Wilder questioned whether Opetaia’s power will carry up in weight, arguing that punches feel different in the heavyweight division.

That argument ignores where both fighters actually stand in late 2026. Since his second fight with Fury, Wilder has gone 3-4 across seven outings, suffering knockout losses to Fury and Zhilei Zhang alongside a shutout decision defeat to Joseph Parker. His only victories in the last four years came against Robert Helenius, journeyman Tyrrell Herndon, and a 42-year-old Derek Chisora, whom Wilder barely scraped past by split decision in April.

At 31, Opetaia enters at 31-0 in his physical prime, fresh off stopping former cruiserweight champion Noel Mikaelian in nine rounds in September. Facing a faded version of Wilder, whose reflexes and trigger finger have visibly slowed, gives the Australian southpaw a high-profile heavyweight debut without the risk of facing an active, elite big man. If Opetaia uses his footwork to keep Wilder turning and forces him to reset his back leg, clean openings for that right hand will be hard to find.

A warm-up against a fringe heavyweight might have let Opetaia test the extra weight, though it would have wasted valuable time when a recognizable name like Wilder was available on a massive stage. Wilder still talks like a fighter people need to be protected from, yet Opetaia is stepping into the ring against a former champion who no longer resembles the puncher he used to be. “Let’s steal the show, bro,” said Wilder.

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Carlos Adames (26-1-1) beat Gerome Warburton (18-3-2) by unanimous decision Saturday in the 10-round main event of Zuffa Boxing 13 at The Venue in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Adames did his best work to the body, landing the heavier punches whenever he caught up with the retreating Welsh southpaw.

The judges scored it 100-90, 99-91 and 98-92 for Adames. Boxing News 24 scored it 100-90. The fight was contested at a 165-pound catchweight, as a non-title fight.

Adames finds his best work to the body

The opening round produced little clean work from either fighter. Adames set a slow pace and Warburton threw tentatively from the back foot, giving the champion room to follow him without taking many risks. In the second, Adames found the clearest scoring punches of the round with several right hands to the body.

Adames switched to southpaw in the third and sat down on hooks to both sides of Warburton’s body. It was his most sustained burst of offense in the early rounds, and his output dropped again when he went back to orthodox. The fourth and fifth passed at much the same pace as the opener, with Adames willing to take the rounds on a handful of clean punches and Warburton rarely committing to his own shots.

By the sixth, Warburton was making Adames chase him around the ring. The movement kept him out of range for stretches, but Adames landed hard to the body when he closed the distance. Warburton kept moving in the seventh, and Adames looked frustrated at times as the Welshman slipped away before the two could trade.

Warburton threw more in the eighth, using his punches mainly to keep Adames from getting close. There was little sustained offense behind them, and Adames went back to walking him down in the ninth. The final round followed the same pattern. Adames pressed at a steady pace and landed when he got close enough, while Warburton kept moving and rarely let his hands go.

Warburton came in off back-to-back decision wins over Nathan Heaney and faced a substantial step up against a reigning world champion. His movement made Adames work to get into range, but he seldom made Adames pay for coming forward. That left Adames free to choose when to press and when to settle for the work he had already done.

The win came in Adames’ Zuffa Boxing debut, five pounds above the middleweight limit. He is expected to return to 160 pounds for a mandatory defense against Meiirim Nursultanov, where his WBC belt would be on the line.