By Allen Fox: It’s looking like WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto will be staying with Top Rank rather than drifting away to sign with another promotional company when his contract expires on December 31st.

Arum has already got Cotto’s next fight planned out for him and wants to match him up against WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. in a fight that would take place in Spring 2012 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Cotto will be fighting for his 4th world title if the fight comes off. The only question is whether Chavez Jr. will still have his title by then because Chavez Jr. is supposed to defend his belt against Sergio Martinez or have the title stripped from him.

Arum will have to do some persuading of Jose Sulaiman to let Chavez Jr. avoid the Martinez fight a little longer so that Chavez Jr. can squeeze in the Chavez fight. Chavez Jr. won the title in June with a win over Sebastian Zbik. He recently defended the title last month, defeating Peter Manfredo Jr. by an easy 5th round TKO win.

Chavez Jr. looked good in that fight, but he was taking on a guy that was overmatched and more of a fringe level contender opponent than a serious threat to him. It was good matchmaking by Arum, but it didn’t tell us anything about how good Chavez Jr. is as a fighter.

A fight between Chavez Jr. and Cotto would be big because Chavez brings in the numbers because of his huge following of Mexican boxing fans in the U.S. He’s yet to fight his first big named fighter, and this would be a considerable step up for Chavez Jr. He struggled against paper champion Zbik and that fight was very close at the end. However, Chavez Jr. might still do well against Cotto because of his size advantage and his trainer Freddie Roach. He’ll obviously train Chavez Jr. well and give a good plan to wear Cotto down.