By Dan Ambrose: Former WBO welterweight champion Miguel Cotto (34-2, 27 KO’s) has an important bout against WBA light middleweight champion Yuri Foreman (28-0, 5 KO’s) next month on June 5th at Yankee Stadium, in New York. Cotto can ill afford to lose this fight, because he’s already been beaten in two of his last four bouts and for him to remain relevant in the boxing world, he has to beat Foreman. This is a fighter that appears to have been carefully selected for Cotto to move up and have a high degree of success in beating.

Cotto’s promoter Bob Arum could have matched him with WBC junior middleweight champion Sergio Martinez or WBO title holder Sergeii Dzinziruk, two of the best champions in the division, but instead he chose Foreman. This is a winnable fight for Cotto, if he has anything left in the tank after his beats from Antonio Margarito and Manny Pacquiao. Cotto was unable to handle the big shots he was hit with by Margarito and Pacquiao, and faded badly near the end of the fights. Cotto also had problems in his war of attrition bout with Joshua Clottey last year. Cotto won that fight but just barely, winning by a 12 round split decision over a fighter that wasn’t even competitive with Pacquiao.

Cotto can hit hard, has power in both hands and one of the best jabs in the division. But when it comes to taking shots, he looks less confident and his skin breaks apart easily around his eyes. His nose bleeds, his eyes bleed and he has problems once those things occur. With all the punishment that Cotto has taken recently, it doesn’t seem to take that many shots to get the blood flowing on his face. The 5’11”Foreman, to be sure, isn’t much of a puncher, but he is bigger than the 5’7” Cotto by four inches and has a big five inch reach advantage over Cotto as well.

Face it, Foreman is a lot bigger fighter than Cotto and with his bigger size, he’ll have the power to possibly open up Cotto’s old cuts and get him fighting blind like he’s been forced to do in his fights with Margarito, Clottey and Pacquiao. Foreman likes to fight on the outside using his piercing jab. When he does come in, he leads with a jab, the top of his head and is dangerous with both. Foreman finishes with a right hand when he dives in and is punishing in that manner, because sometimes he lands both the right hand and the top of his head.

He’ll probably shut Cotto’s offense down completely once inside, so Cotto will have to try to land as best as he can while Foreman is diving forward. In watching Foreman hit the speed bag, he’s not the most coordinated fighter you’ll ever see. He seems to be unable to hit the bag with any rhythm or regularity, often missing it. However, his awkwardness makes him really tough to fight because he’s so unpredictable. I don’t think he even knows what he’s going to do at any given time. Cotto could find himself in a fight that he’s not fully prepared for.

So where does Cotto go if he loses to Foreman? That’s a good question. With three losses in his last five fights, you would have to think that the writing is on the wall for Cotto. His promoter Arum would like to possibly match Cotto again with Pacquiao in the future. However, a loss to Foreman would probably remove those hopes, unless Arum can talk Pacquiao into fighting Cotto again anyway. I think that would be awful fight, but then again both fighters are with Top Rank, so anything is possible.

I think Cotto should really consider retiring if he loses to Foreman. He’s too small to stick around at light middleweight, and would have major problems if he moved back down and fought the likes of Andre Berto. Cotto could go after the WBA welterweight champion Vyacheslav Senchenko, but it’s a fight that wouldn’t make money for Cotto. That could be a direction for him to go if he loses to Foreman, but there’s no one for him to fight there unless he wants to take on the younger contenders like Mike Jones, Saul Alvarez or fight a needless rematch with Zab Judah.