By Cliff Rold

Since a December 2003 Welterweight unification defeat, he’s averaged exactly one fight per year.  He lost three of them by knockout.  Those three losses came at the hands of the three of the biggest names of the last decade at Welterweight and Jr. Middleweight: Oscar De La Hoya, Shane Mosley, and Felix Trinidad.

Put former lineal World Welterweight Champion and Jr. Middleweight titlist Ricardo Mayorga (29-7-1, 23 KO) with a proven draw though and watch out.

At least, that must be what Bob Arum’s Top Rank promotional outfit is hoping for.

How else to explain one of the most unexpected matches made for the first half of 2011?  Having fought only once in 2010, and that in June against feather-fisted Yuri Foreman, the man who stands as arguably the biggest U.S. draw outside of Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather will return from a nine-month absence from the ring for Mayorga?  Miguel Cotto (35-2, 28 KO) couldn’t do better than this?

Apparently not.

After years of hard fights, the reigning WBA 154 lb. titlist Cotto is being given what many big stars showing too much wear too soon have received: profitable, punchable, and highly unlikely to win opposition.  This, for lack of a better term, is Cotto’s money dance.

It’s not like this is something new from Top Rank or any otherwise promotional outfit with a bankable action star.  When the miles were beginning to mount on Featherweight warrior Erik Morales, they pulled the reins back just a bit for a series of bouts in 2003.  That one relatively easier year was probably been pivotal in saving Morales’s legs for what would end up a memorable 2004 campaign (which included the third Marco Antonio Barrera classic) and the Manny Pacquiao trilogy.

It’s hard to begrudge Cotto a Mayorga bout, especially since it isn’t going to be sucking up any of the valuable budget funds at Showtime for free-to-subscriber shows.  This will be the rare Showtime pay-per-view.  For fans that want to say thank you to Cotto for vivid wars going all the way back to DeMarcus Corley and Ricardo Torres in 2005, the option will be there.

For those who don’t, HBO will have a hell of a double header that night.

Everybody wins.

Even Mayorga.

Not in the ring of course.  There, Mayorga is probably preparing to be smoked (pun intended).  The Nicaraguan wild man will make a good show of it, provide some nasty quotes, and, as is already the case , spice up the press conferences.

Mayorga threatened to send Cory Spinks to see his deceased mother prior to losing his Welterweight crown to him in 2003.  He has yet to make any off color references to the recently deceased Miguel Cotto Sr.

Give it time.

Without looking too hard in retrospect, the Spinks loss is where the wheels came off of the short express train that was the Mayorga prime.  Without much in the way of technical skill, Mayorga never seemed the sort set for a long run. 

It was still over faster than expected.

It began with a WBA Welterweight belt-winning knockout of Andrew Lewis in 2002.  A WBC unifying stoppage over the then-lineal king, the late Vernon Forrest, followed the Lewis victory in 2003.  Smoking a cigarette in the ring afterwards, a star was born.  When Mayorga retained, by decision (really) over Forrest later in the year, it looked like he might be more than a flash in the pan. 

Sports Illustrated, which had already largely abandoned boxing in print, did a feature on Mayorga prior to a showdown with the then-IBF titlist Spinks.  Lighter punching and less well rounded than Forrest, Spinks wasn’t given much of a chance by the ‘experts.’

What did they know? 

It was a closer fight than often remembered.  Spinks boxed well but Mayorga kept it close in many rounds and, had it not been for an earned point deduction for fouls and a blown knockdown call late in the fight, Mayorga probably wins.

Shane Mosley would have whooped him in the spring of 2004; that was the planned next fight.

But he would have arrived there.

Since, Mayorga’s irregular appearances have most memorably been as a foil to the stars.  The three losses are noted.  He was also picked as the farewell foe for former Jr. Middleweight star Fernando Vargas and sprung the upset of “El Feroz.” 

It is those four fights which underlines why Mayorga is here now.  He gave Mosley a rough night. He scored an awkward knockdown against Trinidad in that Puerto Rican icon’s first comeback fight.  He came off the floor against De La Hoya to land some hellacious blows in the third round.

And, outside Vargas, he reliably lost. 

If Cotto can do just half the business Trinidad did with Mayorga (just shy of 500,000 buys), this stay busy night will turn a profit.  One never knows with these things.  No one expected De La Hoya-Mayorga to do almost one million buys.

It did.

Should he, as expected, win big over Mayorga on March 12, Miguel Cotto should be fresh and ready for another of the sort of wars fans have come to expect.  He’s given plenty of them over the years and has earned the right to ask the fans for patience before engaging in another.

Just so long as everyone can be up front about what we’re getting for now. 
 
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But wait, there’s (this week, just a little bit) more…

Cliff’s Notes…
With Uncle Roger managing to stay out of the clink, attention turns to Floyd Mayweather’s legal issues.  If he can make it a family trend, will that mean a ring appearance in 2011 for the biggest American star in the game?  The box office is waiting…Finally saw the restored cut of “Metropolis.”  Having never seen it in cut form for whatever reason, just want to say wow.  For a movie from the 1920s, that’s some mind-blowing stuff…Good luck wished to Middleweight John Duddy.  Not to go all Kenny Rogers, but a man knows when to fold ‘em.  Duddy wasn’t the best fighter ever seen or anything, but he certainly was a man between the strands.  That he was outside the ring as well is commendable.

Cliff Rold is a member of the Ring Magazine Ratings Advisory Panel, the Yahoo Pound for Pound voting panel, and the Boxing Writers Association of America.  He can be reached at roldboxing@hotmail.com