By Michael Lieberman: Former WBA junior middleweight champion Yuri Foreman (28=1, 8 KO’s) makes his first appearance since losing his World Boxing Association title to Miguel Cotto when he faces junior middleweight contender Pawel Wolak (28-1, 18 KO’s) on March 12th at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Wolak-Foreman fight will be on the Miguel Cotto vs. Ricardo Mayorga undercard and will come on just before the main event in that fight. Both Foreman and Wolak are part of Bob Arum’s Top Rank stable.

Foreman is decent skills and is probably much too good for the slow and weak Wolak to handle. However, Wolak has one thing in his favor in this fight and that’s his ability to put pressure on his opponents. Cotto was able to stop Foreman last June with his heavy pressure when Foreman injured his bum leg and was forced to limp around for two rounds from the 7th to the 9th when Foreman was stopped by Cotto.

Wolak has to put the same kind of pressure on Foreman if he wants to win this fight because he can’t let Foreman jump in and out and card him up with his jabs and short combinations. At the same time, Wolak has to watch out for Foreman’s head, as he likes to come in head first with his attacks and ram his opponents like a billy goat. Foreman doesn’t try to ram head with his opponents, but it happens over and over again in all his fights. That’s going to be a problem for Wolak because he likes to come in straight at his opponents in a slight lean. Foreman will likely ram head with Wolak early and often. If we don’t have stoppage on cuts by the 6th, I’ll be surprised.