Cotto-Mayorga: Miguel needs a win here to get to Margarito and Pacquiao rematches

By Dan Ambrose: WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (35-2, 38 KO’s) has been put in with former welterweight champion Ricardo Mayorga (29-7-1, 23 KO’s) in a dangerous tune-up fight on March 12th at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Cotto is coming off of shoulder surgery and hasn’t fought since mid 2010 when he defeated the light hitting Yuri Foreman to capture the World Boxing Association junior middleweight title. Bob Arum, rather than put Cotto in with a complete stiff, decided to match him with Mayorga in order to make this fight a pay-per-view bout.

read more

Cotto vs. Mayorga: Should Miguel be the underdog in this fight?

By Dan Ambrose: Miguel Cotto (35-2, 38 KO’s) may be the current World Boxing Association (WBA) junior middleweight champion after stopping Yuri Foreman in the 9th round last year in June, but the way that Cotto looked in that fight, the way that he looked in getting stomped by Manny Pacquiao in the fight before that and the way he went life and death with a very mediocre Joshua Clotty in the fight before the Pacquiao bout, suggests that Cotto may be lucky if he can get by 37-year-old Ricardo Mayorga (29-7-1, 23 KO’s) on March 12th at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

read more

Cotto-Mayorga: Once Ricardo has Miguel bleeding, the entire fight dynamics will change

By Dan Ambrose: For some boxing fans of WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (35-2, 28 KO’s), they see his March 12th bout against 37-year-old former two division world champion Ricardo Mayorga (29-7-1, 23 KO’s) as an easy win for Cotto due to his superior youth, speed and power. It’s hard to deny that Cotto has some significant advantages in this match-up. However, all of those advantages will quickly go out the window once Mayorga has opened up all that scar tissue that surrounds both of Cotto’s eyes.

read more

Cotto vs. Mayorga: The least shot fighter wins

Image: Cotto vs. Mayorga: The least shot fighter winsBy Dan Ambrose: The March 12th junior middleweight clash between WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (35-2, 28 KO’s) and Ricardo Mayorga (29-7-1, 23 KO’s) really boils down to the least shot fighter winning in this fight that takes place at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada. While Cotto is technically the World Boxing Association champion by virtue of Cotto beating one of Bob Arum’s Top Ranks stable fighters Yuri Foreman after he sustained a bad leg injury last year in July, it’s hard to see Cotto as anything more than a fading fighter that looks nothing like what he once was before suffering a terrible beating at the hands of Antonio Margarito in 2008.

read more

Cotto vs. Mayorga: Will Miguel run out of gas if the fight goes past six?

By Dan Ambrose: Much has been said of 37-year-old Ricardo Mayorga (29-7-1, 23 KO’s) being old, fat and having stamina problems once his fights go past the midpoint. However, WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (35-2, 28 KO’s) also has stamina problems and if Mayorga can keep his foot on the accelator past the 6th round in their fight on March 12th at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Mayorga could win this one. Cotto, 30, has always had problems with his stamina dating back to fights against Oktay Urkal and Shane Mosley.

read more

Will HBO be hurt with Cotto-Mayorga not being on their network?

By Chris Williams: With Bob Arum signing a deal with CBS/Showtime, it could mean that many of Arum’s fighters will now be fighting on Showtime instead of HBO. Recently, HBO decided to pass on one of Arum’s biggest cash cows, WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto,w ho Arum wanted to put him in with 37-year-old Ricardo Mayorga on their network in a pay-per-view bout on 3/12. HBO, for whatever reason, decided to go with the Sergio Martinez vs. Sergiy Dzinziruk fight instead on March 12th.

read more

Martinez-Dzinziruk to compete with Cotto-Mayorga on 3/12

By Dan Ambrose: With HBO passing on the Miguel Cotto vs. Ricardo Mayorga fight on March 12th, and choosing instead to show the WBC middleweight fight between Sergio Martinez and unbeaten Sergiy Dzinziruk, boxing fans are going to have to choose which fight they want to see, as Bob Arum, the promoter for Cotto, has decided to have the Cotto-Mayorga pay-per-view fight directly compete with the Martinez-Dzinziruk fight instead of wisely choosing to move it to a date that lacked another good fight.

read more

HBO passed on Cotto-Mayorga: Why isn’t Miguel facing better fighters?

By Jason Kim: Since taking beatings from both Antonio Margarito and Manny Pacquiao, Miguel Cotto isn’t being put in with dangerous fighters all of a sudden, and you have to wonder if Cotto is ducking the better fighters in boxing to try and get a little more mileage out of his career. Cotto faced the feather-fisted WBA junior middleweight paper champion Yuri Foreman in his last fight in June of 2010. Foreman may be a decent fighter but he’s far from being in the class of Sergio Martinez, a fighter that has been trying to get a fight with Cotto for ages without any luck.

read more

Cotto-Mayorga: Will Ricardo destroy Arum’s #2 cash cow?

Image: Cotto-Mayorga: Will Ricardo destroy Arum's #2 cash cow?By Dan Ambrose: Bob Arum was thinking he would get a fighter with a name to draw fans for the March 12th fight of his number #2 cash cow WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (35-2, 28 KO’s). Former two division world champion Richard Mayorga (29-7-1, 23 KO’s), now 37, was spotted and the thinking was that he would help draw the casual boxing fan to help make the March 12th PPV card a success in getting PPV buys.

read more