By Chris Williams: Miguel Cotto has taken big punishment in three out of his last four fights and June 5th, he will be moving up in weight to fight World Boxing Association light middleweight champion Yuri Foreman (28-0, 8 KO’s) at the Yankee Stadium. This is a move that Cotto is making to hopefully grab Foreman’s title, which in turn could position Cotto for a 2nd fight with Manny Pacquiao. There’s little reason for fans to want to see a second fight between the two, because the first fight, a 12th round knockout by Pacquiao, was not a really interesting one because of Pacquiao’s total domination of the fight.

However, the fight against Pacquiao has to be the overriding factor for the short 5’7” Cotto to be moving up to 154. At that size, Cotto would be in danger of taking terrible punishment against the bigger fighters in the division, many of which hit hard and are younger than Cotto. Other than a potential fight with Pacquiao in the future, there’s not much point in Cotto moving out of the welterweight division, with its bigger stars like Pacquiao, Floyd Mayweather Jr., Shane Mosley and Andre Berto.

In moving up in weight to challenge for a title, Cotto has picked Foreman, who is perhaps the weakest puncher of the light middleweight champions and possibly the most vulnerable of the bunch. Foreman is a pure boxer and noted for his movement and his punch and grab technique. He’s hard to set up and offense against because he’s smart enough not to stand in front of his opponents for long.

At the same time, Foreman has a tendency of lowering his head, charging forward, throwing punches as he’s moving and then immediately clinching whether he lands or not. Sometimes Foreman will vary this by either retreating immediately without the clinch or will stand in close and throw some hard uppercuts and body shots. He’s very hard to predict and difficult to defend against, because he’s often looking for only punch before he grabs his opponent.

Of the fighters that Cotto could have picked, this has got to be the toughest style to adapt to and come up with a plan to beat. Foreman wants his opponents to attack him so that he can catch them coming in. He’s good at moving and punching at the same time. Cotto, a stocky fighter who’s not particularly quick on his feet, will have to use his legs more in this fight if he wants to have any luck at catching up to Foreman. Cotto will also have to pray that he doesn’t get cut up by Foreman when he comes in at him with his head lowered like a battering ram.

The chances are high that either Cotto gets cut or Foreman from a clash of heads. Perhaps both will be cut badly at some point. Cotto didn’t look good after sustaining cuts in his fights against Antonio Margarito and Joshua Clottey. The cuts seemed to bother him and make him a much less effective fighter. If Cotto gets cut early on against Foreman, he could be in deep trouble because he’ll have to chase Foreman around with only partial vision.

It’s a difficult thing to do and Cotto could end up taking a lot of punishment in this fight and made to look bad by Foreman. This is what I think will happen. Even if Cotto doesn’t get cut, I think he’s going to have a lot of problems dealing with Foreman’s clinching and movement. Cotto doesn’t clinch himself and doesn’t react well in the few fights where he was dealing with a fighter that clinched constantly.