What Is The Next Step On Miguel Cotto's Comeback Trail?

Miguel Cotto did not do his rapidly declining reputation any harm by disposing of a debilitated Yuri Foreman last weekend. Foreman's injury was unfortunate but Cotto did what he needed to do and when the fight was belatedly stopped it was due to a vicious body punch from Cotto.

Question still linger as to what extent to the vicious beatings he took from first Margarito and then Pacquiao have affected Cotto.

Foreman was never able to utilize his reach effectively or to establish his jab against Cotto and even with two working legs he arguably lost every round. In round 7 Foreman slipped and severely injured his knee. Deprived of the lateral movement upon which he depends he was effectively a sitting duck for Cotto and from this point on the only question was when the referee would step in and stop the fight.

It was reminiscent of a similar incident involving Joshua Clottey in his 2009 fight with Cotto. On that occasion Cotto was partly to blame for flinging Clottey unceremoniously to the canvass but the incident involving Foreman was purely accidental.

It took the shine off what was shaping up to be an emphatic performance by Cotto. Having failed to make any inroads into Cotto's defence in the first half of the fight there was little to suggest Foreman would enjoy any more success in the latter stages.

Despite the win Cotto is not left with a huge array of options. The 20,000 crowd which turned up to see the fight were mostly there to see Cotto and he still has huge pulling power in New York regardless of the opponent.

The question is whether Cotto is content to finish his career fighting comparatively unknown fighters for lightly regarded straps or whether he wants to seek the big money, big name fights again.

A rematch with Pacquiao is being mentioned but it would be a difficult fight to promote given how one sided their first encounter was. Available light middleweight opposition includes Sergio Martinez, Kermit Cintron and Alfredo Angulo. Cotto fans would probably turn out in force to see him face any of these three but a pay per view audience is unlikely to feel the same way.

The light middleweight division does not look a particularly imposing place at present and Cotto should be a force to be reckoned with at 154 lbs.

If Cotto did return to welterweight a fight with Andre Berto would have slightly more marketability. The problem is it is going to be difficult for Cotto to campaign at welterweight for any length of time without coming up against either Manny Pacquiao or Floyd Mayweather and Cotto should stear well clear of these two men at this point in his career.

One obvious alternative is a rematch with Antonio Margarito. The Mexican is currently campaigning at light middleweight and this would give Cotto a chance to avenge the first loss of his career which came at Margarito's hands in 2008.

Cotto is unlikely to find the prospect of another fight with Margarito particularly palatable given what has transpired since their first meeting. Margarito's wraps were found to contain an illegal plaster like substance prior to his fight with Mosley and the Mexican was subsequently handed a year long ban from boxing.

That ban has now expired but there is no guarantee Margarito will ever be licensed to box in the US again. Cotto will also be extremely reluctant to give Margarito another payday given that there is a strong possibility that his handwraps were similarly loaded during their first fight.

Cotto was winning the first half of the fight and Margarito's punching power seemed to have more effect towards the latter rounds. This does not prove conclusively that he had illegaly loaded his hand wraps but on the evidence of the fight it is a plausible explanation.

That loss was a huge setback for the previously unbeaten Cotto who could be forgiven for thinking that Margarito had ruined his career. A rematch with Margarito in either Mexico or Puerto Rico would give him an opportunity to gain revenge but why should Cotto of all people be willing to give the disgraced Margarito a break?

Cotto is still only 29 and could conceivably establish himself as one of the better boxers in the world again but it will be a gradual process. The win against Foreman was a first tentative step towards Cotto's rehabilitation as a world class boxer. He will need to choose the next step judiciously if his comeback trail is to continue.