By Lem Satterfield

BRONX, N.Y. -- Nearly 16 months earlier to the Manny Pacquiao defeat, Miguel Cotto had suffered his first loss as well as the beating of his career at the hands of Antonio Margarito, whose 11th-round knockout in July 2008 not only dethroned Cotto as WBA king, but left the Puerto Rican star with a broken nose after having been knocked down once, taking a knee once and bleeding from a cavernous laceration over his left eye.

During a June 2009, 12-round unanimous decision victory over Joshua Clottey, Cotto had to survive an accidental, third-round clash of heads that re-opened the cut over the left eye and caused it to spurt blood, yet again.

It is for those reasons that Cotto's trainer, Manny Steward, is concerned heading into Saturday night's bout with WBA junior middleweight champion, Yuri Foreman (28-0, eight knockouts), a fighter whose height and reach could cause problems for Cotto (34-2, 27 KOs) as he rises into the highest weight class of his career.

"Because of the danger of cuts and things like that, I don't believe that we can allow Yuri Foreman to get out in front for a lead in the fight too fast," said Steward. "Yuri's style of fighting, to be very honest, can involve a lot of [head-butting.] So we've had cuts before."

Steward considers Foreman to be a safety first fighter who, while he doesn't necessarily commit to his blows, can pop, pot-shot and remain highly mobile -- staying out of harm's way and making him an extremely elusive target.

"Even though he's 5-foot-11, he moves in and he ducks his head and ducks into his punches and clinches," said Steward. "So we don't want to get behind on points. We need to gradually wear him down, and we don't want to have to worry about some cut or injury and have to go to the scorecards. We're going to try to win every round from the first round on."

Even so, cut man Joe Chavez knows that he will have a major role in the fight, this, being only his third with Cotto. Clottey was Chavez's first bout with Cotto, having replaced the dismissed, yet, venerable Miguel Diaz.

Chavez said that he was intermittently successful in handling Cotto's gashes against both Clottey and Pacquiao. Chavez would not speculate on the scar tissue that exists above both of Cotto's eyes.

"Whenever a cut has happened, I've done the best that I could to stop it, and I will be ready to do my role, as always, again on Saturday night," said Chavez. "You don't go out and anticipate that a cut will happen in a fight, but you're just ready to do your job if it does."

Lem Satterfield is the boxing editor at AOL FanHouse and the news editor at BoxingScene.com.