By Dan Ambrose: 38-year-old Ricardo Mayorga (29-8-1, 23 KO’s) has changed his mind about retiring from boxing after his 12th round stoppage loss to WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto last Saturday night. After the fight, Mayorga said that he was going to start looking for a job as he was retiring. However, Mayorga has suddenly had a change of mind and says he’s got “Two easy fights and one hard fight” according to primerahora.

The easy fights will be taking place in Mayorga’s home country of Nicaragua against still unknown opposition and who his opponent will be in his hard fight is also a mystery. But it’s good that Mayorga has decided to keep fighting because he’s still got a lot left in the tank judging by how well he fought Cotto. The fight was remarkably close and Mayorga actually was the more exciting fighter of the two.

That tells you something when you have a 38-year-old fighter looking more exciting than a 30-year-old champion and fighting him to a standstill for much of the fight. Cotto struggled in the early going but then got control of the fight by boxing and avoiding exchanges with the hard hitting Mayorga. If Cotto had stood and traded all night long, we’d likely be celebrating a Mayorga win still because he showed the better power and combinations in the fight.

Mayorga’s promoter Don King likely talked Mayorga out of retiring after seeing how good Mayorga looked. He looked good enough to beat WBC champion Saul Alvarez, WBO champion Sergiy Dzinziruk and IBF champion Cornelius Bundradge last Saturday night. And I think Mayorga, who hurt his left hand earlier in the fight but seriously hurt in the 12th, would have won had the hand injury not occurred. When you have a fighter as good as Mayorga in your stable the last thing you want is for him to retire on you. He’s still way too good to be retiring.