Cotto vs. Foreman to be shown on regular HBO

By Chris Williams: In a fight that is effectively for the bragging rights of New York, former World Boxing Organization welterweight champion Miguel Cotto (34-2, 27 KO’s) will be stepping up in weight to take on WBA light middleweight champion Yuri Foreman (28-0, 8 KO’s) on June 5th, at the Yankee Stadium, in the Bronx, New York. The fight will be shown on regular HBO and not Pay-Per-View, according to the news outlet Primera Hora. A press conference will be held on March 22nd in Tampa, Florida, to announce the fight.

The Yankee Stadium is one of the smaller baseball parks with a seating capacity of only 50,000. It’s doubtful that the Cotto-Foreman fight will sellout, because attention for this fight will largely be driven by the much more popular Cotto rather than the like known Foreman.

To be sure, Foreman is somewhat well known in the New York area, but he’s still not had enough big name fights for him to be considered a major star at this time in the area, even though he currently holds down the WBA light middleweight title.

Incidentally, Foreman just won the WBA title in his last fight, beating a ring rusty Daniel Santos by a 12 round decision in November. Santos, 34, hasn’t fought since winning the WBA title in July 2008 win a 6th round knockout against then champion Joachim Alcine.

Cotto was dominated in his last bout, getting stopped in the 12th round by Manny Pacquiao in November 2009. Although Cotto gave it his best shot at winning, he just didn’t have the speed or the movement needed to compete with Pacquiao and ended up taking a battering. Coming off a loss like that, it’s seems kind of strange to have Cotto fighting in a huge stadium like the Yankee Stadium.

That seems like something that should be done for a fighter that has been winning as of late rather than a fighter like Cotto who just lost badly and who has been beaten in two out of his last four fights. However, boxing fans in the New York area will likely flock to see Cotto fight regardless of who he’s facing and the fact that he’s finding less and less success in the ring nowadays.

It’s unknown what Cotto will do if he gets beaten up and stopped again. If Cotto gets taken out by the light hitting Foreman, this would be Cotto’s third knockout loss in his last five fights and perhaps a hint that Cotto doesn’t have it anymore. Cotto was stopped in the 11th round by Antonio Margarito in July 2008. And in his fight with Joshua Clottey, a bout in which Cotto won by a 12 round split decision in June 2009, Cotto looked like he was ready to be stopped in that fight as well.

If Cotto gets beaten up and blasted out by Foreman, though, it’s hard to tell where Cotto could go from there. Moving back down to the welterweight division might not be the answer right now, because Floyd Mayweather, Manny Pacquiao and Andre Berto are down there and they would be big problems for Cotto. If Cotto stays at light middleweight, he could be too small to compete against the bigger fighters in the division like Paul Williams and Kermit Cintron.

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