By Dan Ambrose: WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (35-2, 28 KO’s) is probably pretty fortunate to be the holder of the World Boxing Association junior middleweight title right now, because if he had to have faced a tougher fighter than fellow Top Rank stable fighter Yuri Foreman in his last fight to capture the WBA title, Cotto probably would have been torn to pieces and finished off. Cotto has taken a ton of punishment in the ring in the past two years to the point where he looks bad when he starts to get hit.

On March 12th, Cotto will be facing challenger Ricardo Mayorga (29-7-1, 23 KO’s) in a fight that will be taking place at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Mayorga is older now and 37, slower and not quite as energetic as he once was earlier in his career. However, Mayorga’s punching power is still fully intact and he’s very dangerous, especially for someone that has taken as much punishment as Cotto has during his career.

Cotto may be the champion right now, but I don’t see him as a real champion, because he didn’t beat anyone with power and he looked terrible in the few instances that the feather-fisted Foreman was landing. Manny Pacquiao had the fight a draw up until Foreman’s right leg gave out on him in the 7th. The ring is Mayorga is a lot better fighter than Foreman on offense with much better power and a style of punching that tends to produce a lot of knockouts due to the wide arc of Mayorga’ shots.

Cotto hasn’t faced a puncher like Mayorga since his loss to Pacquiao. Even Antonio Margarito and Joshua Clottey weren’t as good as Mayorga on offense. This is going to be a fight where Cotto is going to have try and get Mayorga before he gets him. If Cotto leaves Mayorga in the fight for too long, he’s going to bust Cotto up and possibly make him quit like he did against Margarito.