Top Rank Planning Puerto Rican Day Double-Header With Cotto-Margarito II On Top

According to Michael Marley at BoxingScene.com, Top Rank chief Bob Arum is looking at a June double-header in the New York area, tying in with the city's annual Puerto Rican Day Parade. The main event would be a rematch between Miguel Cotto and Antonio Margarito, with Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. facing Yuri Foreman in a co-feature attraction.

Earlier reports had been that Top Rank was still focused on getting a fight between Cotto and Chavez done for March, should Chavez defeat Alfonso Gomez on December 4 in Anaheim. Right now, the schedules of all these guys don't seem to match up for a big June event. Cotto hasn't fought since June of this year, and declined to face Chavez in December after coming off of shoulder surgery. Chavez signed to fight Gomez, and that seemed to make sense to get a fight between those two done in March should all go well. Margarito is having pretty noteworthy surgery on his face following his November 13 loss to Manny Pacquiao, and Foreman has been out since his June loss to Cotto with a knee injury, though at last word he'd been starting to get back into training a little bit.

Will Cotto want to sit out an entire year? Will Margarito really be ready to face a tough opponent by then (or ever again, even)? Will Chavez sit from December to June, or take another easy in-between fight between then? Will Foreman want to face Chavez off of the injury, or would he need a tune-up?

So many questions. So few answers. My gut feeling is that Cotto-Chavez is still the most practical idea, and if they do that in March, it's hard to see both coming back to fight again on June 11, which would be the Saturday night before the Puerto Rican Day Parade. Of course you never can be 100% sure what anyone in boxing is really thinking, so it'll figure itself out in time, of course. Maybe none of it happens.

And as for the December 4 Top Rank pay-per-view card, featherweight prospect Miguel Angel "Mikey" Garcia will be facing Olivier Lontchi on the broadcast. You may remember Lontchi from his 2009 loss to Juan Manuel Lopez. He hasn't fought since then.