By Dan Ambrose: It’s fair to say that Miguel Cotto (35-2, 28 KO’s) dodged a bullet in his last fight when WBA junior middleweight champion Yuri Foreman’s right knee gave out on him in the 7th round right when he was teeing off on Cotto and the fight was pretty much even. Had that injury not occurred, I think we would be talking about Foreman vs. Ricardo Mayorga (29-7-1, 23 KO’s) instead of Cotto.

All I can say is Cotto got lucky when Foreman injured his leg, because Cotto was eating a lot of shots from Foreman and it likely wouldn’t have taken long for Cotto’s face to start bleeding on schedule once Foreman was able to tenderize it a little more. The leg injury saved Cotto, and enabled him to get a 9th round stoppage win and move onto the Mayorga fight on March 12th at the MGM grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Mayorga can do pretty much everything that Foreman can do only better, because he’s got better power and a much better assortment of punches compared to the lighter hitting Foreman. Mayorga is going to be feeding Cotto with shots from the earliest moment of their fight on March 12th, and I can’t see Cotto’s face holding up long under the rain of shots from Mayorga.

Although Cotto did unveil a nifty jab in his fight with Foreman, it didn’t take long for Cotto to stop throwing the jab and resort to his usual slugging style of fighting. I suspect Cotto will do the same thing against Mayorga. He’ll start off with the jabbing, but then quickly fall into his slugging style of fighting. We may see some running from Cotto once he’s bleeding and/or hurt, but it won’t help him, because Mayorga is a great finisher and cuts off the ring expertly.