By Jason Kim: Promoter Don King is looking to setup his fighter two-time world champion Ricardo Mayorga (29-7-1, 23 Ko’s) with a fight against Manny Pacquiao next if the 37-year-old Mayorga can beat WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (35-2, 28 KO’s) on March 12th at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

King sees the Cotto fight as big opportunity for Mayorga, and believes with a huge win over Cotto, it will lead to a fight with Pacquiao, boxing’s number #1 cash cow.

As quoted by the Manila Bulletin, King said “We are going to make Pacquiao vs. Mayorga. I am giving you breaking news.”

Even if Mayorga beats Cotto, who is probably Top Rank promoter Arum’s number #2 moneymaker right now, it’s still hard to imagine that Arum will want to put Pacquiao in with Mayorga. Arum is looking to match Pacquiao against smaller fighters and Mayorga has some size to him.

Pacquiao would likely take some punishment in a fight with Mayorga and Arum might not like the risk when he can still probably match Pacquiao up with Cotto, even if Cotto is beaten. It doesn’t seem to matter whether fighters are coming off of loses.

The public will still buy into a fight as long as Pacquiao is involved in it. Mayorga has one big problem that might make a Pacquiao-Mayorga fight all but impossible to be put together. Mayorga doesn’t fight for Top Rank, and Arum likes to have his fights in house. Perhaps King, an old friend of Arum, could get him to change his mind about this. But it’s going to take a lot of wheeling and dealing by King to get that done.

However, this is probably neither here nor there, as Cotto is the favorite to beat Mayorga on March 12th. But you can’t really predict what will happen in any of Cotto’s fights nowadays due to the punishment he’s taken in fights in recent years. He could fall apart if Mayorga takes it to him in a sustained way like Antonio Margarito and Pacquiao inflicted on him in victories over Cotto.