By Dan Ambrose: WBA Super World junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (35-2, 28 KO’s) is facing what in practical purposes figures to be a tune-up fight on March 12th against 37-yer-old Ricardo Mayorga (29-7-1, 23 KO’s) in their fight at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada. The fight is supposed to be a safe fight for Cotto against an old lion of the past. However, things may not work out as good as Bob Arum, Cotto’s promoter, is hoping it will.

Arum picked out Mayorga so that the Cotto tune-up fight brings in good numbers because Arum has decided to make it a pay-per-view bout. If Cotto hadn’t taken so many beatings in the past three years, you could look at this fight and safe with a high degree of certainty that Cotto will win easily. But Cotto has had the stuffing literally beaten out of him in losses to Antonio Margarito and Manny Pacquiao. And he’s also taken a massive amount of punishment in wins over Zab Judah, Shane Mosley and Joshua Clottey.

Cotto has been really hammered in all of these fights. This is why we really can’t know how Cotto is going to react when Mayorga starts putting hands on him early in this fight. Cotto hasn’t been in with anyone tough since the Pacquiao beating in November 2009. Arum did Cotto a big favour in his last fight against Top Rank fighter Yuri Foreman, who can’t punch at all.

The Mayorga fight will be the first fight for Cotto against a puncher since the Pacquiao bout. We could see Cotto break down under the stress and the power of Mayorga’s shots. I’m just hoping Cotto doesn’t quit mentally and take a couple of knees like did in his loss to Antonio Margarito.