By Jim Dower: WBA junior middleweight champion Yuri Foreman (28-0, 8 KO’s) is not only taking the toughest fight of his career against former WBO welterweight champion Miguel Cotto (34-2, 27 KO’s) on June 5th at the Yankee Stadium, in New York, but Foreman is also facing the best offensive fighter in his career with the hard-hitting Cotto. Up until now, Foreman has faced a lot less dangerous opponents during his career.
You could probably say that Daniel Santos was the best fighter in terms of offensive power and skills that Foreman has fought since turning pro. But there is a huge gap between the talent that Cotto has on offense and the kind of power and skills that Santos has. Foreman is going to be facing a lot harder shots and a fighter that is accustomed to taking out most of his opponents.
The only fighters that have done well against Cotto are guys with good offensive skills, like Manny Pacquiao and Antonio Margarito, both of whom stopped Cotto in their fights with him. Foreman is nowhere near those fighters with his power and his ability to put his punches together. With nothing much coming back at him as far as an offensive threat, Cotto is going to be able to really pour it on against Foreman and it’s going to take something really special from Foreman if he wants to have a chance to win this fight and not get knocked out.
Just moving around on the outside and throwing an occasional pot shot won’t get the job done against Cotto. It may have worked against the lesser opponents that Foreman has been matched up against before now but it won’t work against Cotto. Foreman will either get out-pointed or stopped if he fights in his usual economical manner on offense.
He’s going to have to up his work rate and find some power someplace if he wants to be competitive and have a good chance of getting out of the June 5th fight in one piece with his WBA title still in his possession. It’s not going to be the easiest of things because Foreman hasn’t had any real experience to get him ready for this fight.
A lot of people see Foreman as a paper champion, someone who picked out the weakest of junior middleweight champions and went after him rather than going after the arguably much tougher WBC junior middleweight champion Sergio Martinez. We’ll see if Foreman is for real or someone that really doesn’t belong at the top of the division when he meets up with Cotto next month at Yankee Stadium.
Comments are closed.