Not even the allure of a secondary title at stake was enough to get Christian Mbilli and Diego Pacheco on the same page.

The WBC has called for an April 8 purse bid to determine promotional rights for an Mbilli-Pacheco interim super middleweight title fight, BoxingScene has confirmed. The ruling was made after it was determined that enough time had lapsed for the two sides to reach an agreement.

Mbilli, 28-0 (23 KOs), is co-promoted by Eye of the Tiger Management (EOTTM) and Top Rank. Pacheco, 23-0 (18 KOs), is a homegrown Matchroom Boxing contender.

The winner of the proposed bout would become the WBC mandatory challenger to lineal and unified super middleweight champion Saul "Canelo" Alvarez, 62-2-2 (39 KOs).

That’s if the fight moves forward – a big question given Mbilli’s frustrating track record of landing the fights he craves.

An unbeaten 29-year-old contender from Montreal (by way of Cameroon), Mbilli has long sought out the best fights at super middleweight.

The ordered bout represents his second round of talks with Pacheco and Matchroom; the two parties were previously instructed to reach terms for an IBF-ordered title eliminator. It went all the way to a purse bid hearing before Matchroom pulled Pacheco – a 24-year-old contender from South Central Los Angeles – from the mix because, at the time, he already had a scheduled fight against unbeaten Steven Nelson.

Pacheco defeated Nelson via 12-round unanimous decision in their January 25 headliner from Chelsea Theater at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas. It was teased at the time that his next fight would land around May or June. The back end is still the targeted timeframe while Pacheco, also the WBO No. 1 contender, weighs his options.

Mbilli was instead steered towards an IBF eliminator against Kevin Lele Sadjo. That ordered bout also went to a purse bid, which was won by Y12 Boxing, Sadjo’s promoter, which planned to stage the bout on May 8 in Paris.

Camille Estephan, head of EOTTM and Mbilli’s promoter, insisted that his company was outbid unfairly. The basis of the claim was that EOTTM participated under the belief that the fight had to take place within 90 days of the January 30 hearing.

Y12 chose the May 8 fight date to coincide with Victory Day, a widely celebrated holiday in France. That line of thinking wasn’t enough to convince EOTTM that it was done in good faith, as a decision was made to pull Mbilli from the fight.

The development has left Mbilli out of the ring since last August, an unfortunate career turn after his three-win 2024 campaign. His third and final victory of the year was a 10-round unanimous decision over former title challenger Sergiy Derevyanchenko in Quebec City, Canada, last August 17.

Another failed attempt to lure Pacheco into the ring could further extend Mbilli’s downtime. The process would reset as his team seeks out a challenge against the next-highest-ranked available contender.

It was agreed upon by the WBC Board of Governors to allow an interim title into the mix given Alvarez’s planned 2025 campaign. The Mexican superstar is first due to face IBF titlist William Scull, 23-0 (9 KOs), for the undisputed championship on May 3 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

The event will mark Alvarez’s Riyadh Season debut as part of a lucrative four-fight pact and his first career fight outside of North America, though a return to the US is planned immediately thereafter. It would come in the form of a super-fight with Terence "Bud" Crawford, 41-0 (31 KOs), a four-division champ who would move up from junior middleweight for the proposed September blockbuster event in Las Vegas.

Mbilli can only hope that the detours he has been forced to take will finally lead to a title shot by that point.