***the Official Cotto vs Mayorga fight thread***

Was just going to start one of these until I remembered seeing one and did a search. Lets update this with all the content from this fight we can :good

 

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Hall of Fame Top Rank promoter Bob Arum called a halt to the photo posedown between WBA super welterweight champion Miguel Cotto and two-division world champion Ricardo Mayorga after Mayorga shoved Cotto during a press conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico Thursday to announce their upcoming world title fight on March 12, at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

Ricardo Mayorga: “I respect your mother but I don’t want her to suffer anymore. She cannot take any more of those beatings you’ve been taking. I will finish you off and your mother will be in peace at last. This won’t take me long, about four rounds on March 12.”

Miguel Cotto: “You have about seven more weeks to talk. Get it all out. Keep talking. Then we will go into the ring. That’s when your talking stops.”

Cotto brought the WBA Super Champion’s belt (which looks different from the usual WBA title belt). Mayorga first went for the belt, then cracked Cotto across the chest. Bob Arum immediately announced no more posing for photographs

 

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Mayorga returns to the spotlight
By Matt Richardson
Photos: David Martin Warr/DKP

It’s been more than two years since Ricardo Mayorga was in the boxing spotlight. In fact, the last time the former welterweight and junior middleweight champion was in a big fight on a big stage, he was laid out on his back; knocked out in the final seconds of a 12-round bout with Shane Mosley. But while the time away from the sport may have softened Mayorga’s stomach and muscles, it’s done little to hamper his infamous trash-talking. This was clearly evident on Wednesday morning in New York City when promoters Bob Arum and Don King came together to announce a fight between Mayorga (29-7-1, 23 KO’s) and current WBA junior middleweight title-holder Miguel Cotto (35-2, 28 KO’s).

The fight will be broadcast on SHOWTIME Pay-Per-View on March 12, live from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. It will only be Mayorga’s second fight since losing to Mosley in September of 2008. But according to Mayorga, it’s no big deal. “This isn’t a huge fight for me,” the boxer explained to Fightnews. “This is a fight like I just took in December against a Mike Walker-level of opponent. This guy’s not dangerous. This is not a big fight for me.”

“I don’t see him as a true challenge to me,” he continued. “I see him as a bad fighter. He’s not what he was before. He’s in bad shape. Look at the fight that they’re showing clips of him. He should be ashamed that he’s fighting a guy with a bad leg,” Mayorga said of Cotto’s fight last June with Yuri Foreman in which Foreman injured his knee.

“He (Foreman) only has one leg and one hand and he gave him a run for his money.”

Mayorga said the time away from boxing has done him well, although he admits he hasn’t been in the gym consistently. “I’ve been training every once in a while, enjoying time with my family and overall just relaxing,” he said. “I feel strong, refreshed, two years of preparation and a new found hunger to come back into the ring and a lot of hunger to fight.”

Mayorga is also hoping an upset win over Cotto will lead to a bigger assignment later in the year: one against pound for pound king Manny Pacquiao.

“Yes, absolutely,” Mayorga said vigorously when asked if he wanted to fight the Filipino phenom. “Obviously, it’s a much more difficult fight. He has a lot of stamina. He has a good chin. And he has a high volume of punches coming my way. So it’s a much different fighter. It’s a much different fight.”

But for now, Mayorga has to focus on Cotto, the latest high-profile opponent in a career that has seen the Nicaraguan do battle with Vernon Forrest, Felix Trinidad, Oscar de la Hoya and Mosley. But don’t ask Mayorga to put the Puerto Rican in that category.

“You can say that Miguel Cotto is the red carpet that Tito, de la Hoya and myself have walked on,” he said.

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