By Jim Dower: On June 5th, the smallish 5’7” Miguel Cotto (34-2, 27 KO’s) will be moving up in weight to take on World Boxing Association light middleweight champion Yuri Foreman (28-0, 8 KO’s) in a championship bout at Yankee Stadium, in New York. Depending on who you ask, Cotto is either running away from the welterweight division, where he has lost two out of his last four fights and struggled badly in a third fight, looking to win an easy paper title or setting himself up strategically to possibly get a second fight against Manny Pacquiao in the future.

The third option is a distinct possibility, as Pacquiao is said to be interested in winning an 8th world title before he retires and a fight against Cotto, who Pacquiao easily beat last year by a 12th round knockout in November, would be a simple task for Pacquiao. But one would hope that Cotto isn’t moving up in weight for that or to run from the top welterweights in the division.

To be sure, Cotto still has enough talent to compete with the very best welterweights, but it’s probably safe to say that Cotto will never be able to beat a fighter like Pacquiao. Cotto would also likely have huge problems against Floyd Mayweather Jr. if they were to fight. I also have my doubts that Cotto can beat Andre Berto and probably not even Shane Mosley, even though Cotto has beaten him once previously in 2007.

So is Cotto moving up in weight to find easier opponents in the light middleweight division so that he can somehow extend his career? If so, it might work for Cotto on the short term because if Cotto can beat Foreman for what many boxing fans consider a paper title, Cotto would be in the perfect position to defend that title against a pretty much weak top 15 for awhile.

The top six in the WBA light middleweight consists of generally obscure fighters by the names of Austin Trout, Nelson Linares, Zaurbek Baysangurov, Joachim Alcine, and Daniel Santos. Although Santos is well known, he looked horrible in losing to Foreman in November. Cotto, as bad as he looked against Joshua Clottey, Antonio Margarito and Pacquiao, could probably easily beat Santos and the rest of those guys.

However, it’s hard to see how much credit Cotto would get by beating him and those wouldn’t be huge mega fights because those guys are big stars like Pacquiao, Mosley and Mayweather. And sooner or later, Cotto would be forced to fight a guy like Alfredo Angulo, who throws a lot of punches and has even better power than Margarito, and I see Cotto being destroyed by Angulo. If Cotto decides to stay at light middleweight, he’s going to have problems because of his limited height. Even if he wins, he’s going to take a certain amount of punishment form these bigger fighters and it could add up very quickly.

If Cotto is being positioned to try and get a rematch with Pacquiao by beating Foreman, then I can understand him moving up in weight to take on the bigger fighter. I don’t know who on earth would want to waste their time and money seeing a Pacquiao-Cotto rematch after watching the first fight, but I can see why it would be a smart move for Cotto to try and capture Foreman’s title so that he could position himself for a rematch against Pacquiao.