By Jim Dower: World Boxing Association (WBA) junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (35-2, 28 KO’s) plans on fighting on March 12th against one of three possible opponents. His promoter Bob Arum attempted to line up a fight on HBO against one of his other Top Rank stable fighters Vanes Martirosyan (28-0, 17 KO’s) for the March 12th date, according to news from Dan Rafael of ESPN. However, HBO passed on the fight because they already had WBC middleweight champion Sergio Martinez fighting on that date.

Arum reportedly isn’t pleased and says he’s going to have Cotto fight on that date anyway but on pay-per-view. It’s unclear whether Cotto will fight Martirosyan, Ricardo Mayorga or Pawel Wolak (28-1, 17 KO’s). It may not be a great idea for Arum to compete with the Martinez fight because that will be a non-PPV fight, and this guy has suddenly become red hot recently after knocking out Paul Williams in 2 rounds. HBO and boxing fans can’t get enough of Martinez and they obviously want to see more of him.

In contrast, Cotto hasn’t looked as good recently, getting destroyed by Antonio Margarito in 2008, struggling to beat Joshua Clottey, getting blown out by Manny Pacquiao last year and then beating up on one of Arum’s stable fighters Yuri Foreman in June to capture the WBA junior middleweight title. It was good that Cotto beat Foreman, but Foreman was considered a paper champion by many boxing fans and not considered to be the best fighter in the division. Cotto looked good at times in that fight, but it still looked close until Foreman was injured in the 7th.

If I’m an HBO executive, I would have passed on Cotto vs. Martirosyan as well if I had Martinez also available. I think Cotto-Martosyan bout is a decent fight, but not an enthralling one. Martirosyan looked terrible in a fight against Kassim Ouma in January, winning a questionable 10 round decision. Martirosyan rebounded from that poor performance with a 10 round decision over Joe Greene in June, but he still didn’t look all that impressive. He doesn’t have a big fan base, and he runs a lot. It’s hard to imagine a fight between Martirosyan and Cotto comparing to the action that you would get in a fight with Martinez against anybody.

Arum had this to say in Rafael’s ESPN column: “Cotto has been on HBO for seven years and they rejected a decent Cotto fight. I don’t think they know s—. We offered it for a bargain price. They said ‘no’ and are going with another fight. That is going to affect our relationships in the coming years and I emphasize all our relationships.”

Arum also promotes Manny Pacquiao. This seems kind of silly. I don’t know how you can blame HBO for wanting to show Martinez fight rather than Cotto against a fighter likes to run like Martirosyan, especially if they already had Martinez scheduled. It seems like an easy pick to me. Martinez is winning his fights, while Cotto has taken some major beatings in the past two years and a lot of boxing fans think he’s not the same fighter he once was.