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Miguel Cotto (34-2, 27 KO’s) has taken an extensive amount of punishment in a handful of fights in the past two years and there are some people who think that Cotto is a shot fighter. Cotto still has good power, jab and all around offensive skills, but like always, he’s lacking on defense. On Saturday night, the 29-year-old Cotto faces WBA junior middleweight champion Yuri Foreman (28-0, 8 KO’s) at Yankee Stadium, in the Bronx, New York.
This is a must win fight for Cotto for him to regain some of the status he lost in his defeats by Antonio Margarito and Miguel Cotto. It’s also an important bout because Cotto would like to avenge the loss to Pacquiao and get another huge payday at the same time. Foreman, also 29, was picked for a couple of reasons: 1. He’s a Top Rank fighter like Cotto and 2. Foreman doesn’t have a lot of power or offensive skills.
This gives Cotto, a scared up and battered fighter, a much better chance of beating him and picking up his WBA junior middleweight title than Cotto would if he were to go after WBC champion Sergio Martinez. I don’t think for a second that Arum would allow Cotto to go after Martinez, who is considered to be the best of junior middleweight champions right now by many boxing experts.
Martinez would likely dominate and stop Cotto. In choosing Foreman, Cotto has a much better chance of picking up the WBA title and using it as Pacquiao bait for him to go after his 8th world title. However, even in selecting for what some fans consider being the weakest of the junior middleweight champions, there’s a real danger that Cotto will take another beating, get torn up and stopped again.
Cotto is okay on offense, but when he starts getting hit, bad things happen. Cotto starts bleeding, going down and looking confused and not confident. Cotto took an enormous beating from Antonio Margarito in an 11th round TKO loss two years ago in July 2008.
That fight seemed to take something away from Cotto, as he doesn’t appear to be the same fighter since then. He’s beaten Joshua Clottey and Michael Jennings since then, but Cotto didn’t look good against Clottey. The Jennings fight was a total mismatch because Jennings, until then, was a fighter that fought exclusively British competition and appeared more of a 2nd tier fighter than a top level one.
The question for Cotto is whether he’ll opt to continue with his boxing career if he gets badly beaten and stopped by Foreman on Saturday. You would normally think that another knockout loss here would spell doom for Cotto’s career, but I’m not so sure about that. Arum will likely move Cotto back down to welterweight and continue to match him against his Top Rank fighters in big money fights. Cotto remains popular in the New York area whether he wins or loses.
I can see Arum putting Cotto right back in another stadium fight at the Yankee Stadium or the Cowboy Stadium, in Arlington, Texas. Cotto’s fans would still likely want to see him fight even if he gets stomped by Foreman. As things are right now, Cotto is coming off a knockout loss to Pacquiao, and yet Arum has Cotto fighting at the Yankee Stadium, as if Cotto’s career is sailing along rather than floundering.
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