By Dan Ambrose: Former two division world champion Ricardo Mayorga (29-7-1, 23 KO’s) is licking his chops at the prospects of facing Manny Pacquiao for a huge payday in 2011 if Mayorga can get by WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (35-2, 28 KO’s) on March 12th at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

However, instead of being able to dine on the nice steak meal of facing Pacquiao for a dream payday and the equivalent of a golden parachute to retire on, the 37-year-old Mayorga will likely have to settle for the recently beaten up, and fading Antonio Margarito instead. That’s not exactly a great fight for Mayorga because it won’t bring in anywhere near the same kind of money Mayorga would get against Pacquiao.

At this point, it would be a fight in which Mayorga would be doing Margarito a huge favor by fighting him. If Top Rank promoter Bob Arum isn’t willing to let his number #1 cash cow fighter Pacquiao to fight Mayorga, then Ricardo needs to try and get a rematch against Cotto because that would figure to bring in a lot more money than to fight the recently beaten up Margarito. Besides that, if Mayorga faces Margarito, they can only fight in a small number of venues because Margarito doesn’t have a boxing license to fight in Nevada, California or New York. It would likely have to take place in Texas, and that’s not exactly the hotbed for boxing action.

But first things first, Mayorga has to find a way to beat Cotto on March 12th. If you look at Cotto’s fights against Pacquiao, Joshua Clottey, Margarito and Yuri Foreman, you’ll notice that Cotto runs out of gas early in his fights and is vulnerable if you take the fight to him hard in the 5th round on. He seems to gas out and gets hurt when fighters put their punches together in a sustained manner of the 5th. This is what Mayorga needs to focus on doing against Cotto if he wants to get the win.