By Chris Williams: According to Dan Rafael of ESPN, there is talk of World Boxing Association (WBA) junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (35-2, 28 KO’s) fighting junior middleweight contender and fellow Top Rank fighter Vanes Martirosyan (28-0, 17 KO’s) next. I don’t quite understand this fight happening now. Martirosyan, 24, is ranked number #4 by the WBA, but really hasn’t fought anyone besides Kassim Ouma and Joe Greene. I thought that Ouma should have beaten Martirosyan in their fight in January of this year. But whether he won or lost, Martirosyan did not look at all good against a fighter that he should have been able to handle without too many problems. By putting Martirosyan in with Cotto, I see this as serving up Cotto an easy opponent for him to hold onto his WBA title for a little while longer.

I’d much prefer Cotto to be matched against WBO junior middleweight interim champion Alfredo Angulo. I think that would be a great fight and might end up being similar to Cotto’s fight against Antonio Margarito two years ago in 2008. Cotto got beaten up in that fight and ended up getting stopped in the 11th. That might be reason enough for Cotto’s promoter Bob Arum not to put him in with a big puncher like Angulo. But Martirosyan doesn’t seem ready for a fighter like Cotto, not that Martirosyan ever will be.

I think the good thing about Martirosyan is his youth. At 24, he can wait the top fighters out until they grow old and retire or get beatable, and then swoop in and win a title. But against a still relatively cogent Cotto, I think Martirosyan is going to get spanked. I don’t know of any of the current junior middleweight champions that I would give Martirosyan a chance against. And I don’t think he has a big enough following for this to be a pay per view bout, although it probably will be if it ends up getting put together.

There’s also talk of Cotto fighting Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. , who is also a Top Rank fighter. I think I like that fight about as much as I like a potential bout between Cotto and Martirosyan. I don’t understand why Arum won’t put Cotto in with Angulo, Kermit Cintron or maybe even Andre Berto. I guess there’s too much of a risk that Cotto will get beaten and then mess up his chance for a big money rematch with Manny Pacquiao early next year. Hopefully, once Cotto destroyed again by Pacquiao, that will be the last fight between them. How can they be having a rematch when Pacquiao destroyed Cotto so easily last year in a 12th round knockout? What’s the point of that fight, other than making more money for the two fighters?