Miguel Cotto's June return to the ring won't be on PPV. HBO has picked up Cotto's challenge of Yuri Foreman at Yankee Stadium. (Photo by Ethan Miller / Getty Images)

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In a seriously relieving piece of news for hardcore boxing fans, the June 5 fight at Yankee Stadium between 154-pound titlist Yuri Foreman and former 140- and 147-pound beltholder Miguel Cotto has been picked up by HBO, and will not be shown on pay-per-view, according to BoxingScene.com.

Mostly, Foreman-Cotto is a fight I genuinely like (as an idea, anyway; as a fight, I think it runs a high risk of stinking something fierce). Cotto's going to be a seriously tiny junior middleweight, but he's a better all-around fighter than Foreman, who has in the past shown a real dislike of getting hit. Lucky for him, he hasn't been hit much in his career, but for Cotto this is something of a shot at redemption, and I expect the Puerto Rico to come out with guns blazing, targeting the taller, bigger Foreman's ribcage and getting back to what made him Miguel Cotto in the first place.

But as a pay-per-view main event, this was a mediocre fight at best. Foreman isn't exciting and most of his name value is built around his story (he's training to become a rabbi, if you've never heard), and it's a story mostly known to major boxing fans and Jews. He's gotten some solid mainstream press coverage because of his unique life outside the ring, but as good as those stories are for his career, I don't think they've ramped up interest in his career that much, certainly not so much that a $40-50 PPV was going to sell like hotcakes or anything.

They both last fought on November 14. Cotto, of course, was beaten by Manny Pacquiao that night, while on the undercard, Foreman dominated another Puerto Rican, Daniel Santos, to win the WBA junior middleweight title. It was something of a coming-out performance for Foreman. Even though Santos was clearly past his prime and out of shape for the fight, Foreman took it to him and left no doubt who the better fighter was that night.

Cotto has lost just twice in his career, to Pacquiao and Antonio Margarito, the latter disputed today by many because of Margarito's hand-wrapping controversy last year. After he lost to Margarito, Cotto took an easy comeback fight against Brit welterweight Michael Jennings and thoroughly dominated him, then jumped back into the fire with Joshua Clottey, followed by Pacquiao.

But this time, he's going right back into a very stern challenge. Foreman isn't destined to become boxing royalty, but he's in his prime and again, he is much bigger than Cotto, who was pretty small at welterweight all things considered. Height-wise he's about on par with Manny Pacquiao, and there are other guys in that same range. Not all welters are 5'9" like Shane Mosley or 5'10" like Oscar de la Hoya was. But Cotto doesn't have the big frame that a Clottey or Andre Berto has, either. He's lean in his upper body. Against Pacquiao, he looked absolutely no bigger than his opponent.

Foreman is 5'11" and carries 154 well. It's a real risk for Cotto. If he loses -- which is very possible -- he's at a major career crossroads. He's already talked retirement, and I think if he loses to Yuri, it'll at least be a long while before we see him fight again. But let's get back to the real topic at hand for right now.

The fact that we'll get to see this on normal HBO World Championship Boxing is a blessing. Boxing promoters are already asking a lot of fans. After a great 2009 where the only major PPV offerings were for the three biggest fights of the year (Hatton-Pacquiao, Mayweather-Marquez, Cotto-Pacquiao), boxing is teetering on getting back into the habit of sticking too many fights behind the BUY button on your remote. There's already a PPV on Saturday, then one on April 3 (Hopkins-Jones II), and May 1 (Mosley-Mayweather).

Another show on June 5 not only risked being overkill, but because it was at best the third most interesting PPV fight being offered in a fairly short period of time, suffering from a lack of interest from fans whose wallets were starting to feel drained.

An official announcement of the fight will be made on March 22 in Tampa, where the New York Yankees hold spring training.

Three days from fight night, Manny Pacquiao and Joshua Clottey are closing in on a 45,000-seat sellout at Cowboys Stadium. (Photo by Ronald Martinez / Getty Images)

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Calvin Watkins of ESPN Dallas reports that there are just a "few hundred" seats remaining in the 45,000-seat setup at Cowboys Stadium for Saturday night's fight between Manny Pacquiao and Joshua Clottey, meaning the fight is close to selling out. Those wondering whether Clottey would be a big enough name to help Pacquiao reach that attendance plateau can now be assured that if nothing else, Pacquiao alone is a big enough name to draw that much interest.

As we've discussed previously, that doesn't mean this will be the year's biggest gate in terms of money drawn at the event. Even without about 30,000 less seats available, the May 1 fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Shane Mosley in Las Vegas is going to generate more cash simply because ticket prices are much higher. Most of the seats for the Pacquiao-Clottey fight are fairly inexpensive.

I also don't mean that to be a negative. Fight tickets outside of the relatively intimate setting of the Vegas casinos should be fairly inexpensive for anything but the best seats, so I look at this as a genuine positive. It proves that if you make it readily available, the general public will come.

The talk between the two at today's final press conference wasn't heated, but rather competitive. Clottey offered the day's best quote:

"Nobody has ever beat me or cracked me," said Clottey, who has lost three close fights. "I want to see what he can do."

Clottey also noted there is "much respect" between the two fighters, and Pacquiao feels their promotion can be "a good example to everybody."

As usual, the closer this fight gets, the more excited I've become. If nothing else, it's another chance to see a living, breathing phenomenon in the prime of his career take a stiff challenge from a very good fighter whose shot has been earned, and who never comes in at less than 100%. Chances to see Manny Pacquiao in action become fewer by the fight, as he has legitimate interests and concerns away from the boxing world, so I say it's at least worth making sure you don't miss an opportunity to see one of a generation's absolute best while he's still got it.

Many of my fans have been wondering where I’ve been since my fight against Vitali Klitschko, so I just want to let them know that the Kingpin is back and looking to conqueror the heavyweight division in 2010. First off, most of you don’t realize that I suffered a torn bicep in the 2nd round of my fight against Vitali and still I was able to go the distance with a man who has stopped almost everyone that he’s been in there against. I make no excuses, my fight against Vitali wasn’t my best performance but I think that I showed that I belonged in the ring fighting for the world title. Vitali never layed hand on me, while I was able to bust him open. If I was at my best that night, who knows what might have happened?

Adam "Swamp Donkey" Richards gets his first title shot after moving down to cruiserweight. He'll face Marco Huck in a fight that shouldbe entertaining for as long as it lasts. via www.adamswampdonkeyrichards.com

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We finally get our first truly big fight of the year, and the promoters have basically cleared out the schedule in anticipation of it.  There is, however, also a solid card going on in Germany the day of Pacquiao-Clottey, and Bob Arum as usual has a lead-in card the night before the big fight, and a Friday Night Fights substitute will be on ESPN Deportes instead of ESPN2.

Friday, March 12

Eurosport (EU), 3:00 p.m. Eastern, Lukas Konecny vs. Ionut Trandafir Ilie.   Ilie is a late replacement for Attila Kovacs, but probably isn't much of a step down.  Konecny is most prominent for nearly beating Sergei Dzinziruk a few years ago, and now is ranked as a middleweight by a couple of sanctioning bodies.  The proceeds of this fight will go towards relief in Haiti.

Sky Sports (UK), 5:00 p.m. Eastern, Paul Smith vs. Tony Dodson, Kell Brook vs. Krzyzstof Bienias.  Former "Contender" participant Smith will attempt the first defense of his BBBoC super middleweight title against exciting gatekeeper Dodson.  Brook it taking his first (sort of) step up in trying to take Pole Bienias' WBO intercontinental trinket.  Brook has been making a lot of noise lately about how he's gunning for Miguel Cotto and ready to face the big boys in the welterweight division, but that's all a pipe dream until he starts facing a few guys people have heard of. 

Gofightlive.tv, 8:00 p.m. ($9.99), Tony Grano vs. Mark Brown, Mike Oliver vs. Kermin Guardia, Sadam Ali vs. Jose Duran.  Grano is coming off his upset of Travis Kaufman and is trying to avenge is only loss, which came to Brown.  He's exciting, but he's still a four round fighter.  122 pound contender Oliver will take on former titlist Guardia, who is now 40 years old, fighting six weight classes above where he won his title and has lost five in a row.

ESPN Deportes, 9:00 p.m. Eastern, Giovanni Lorenzo vs. Wilmer Gonzalez, Kenny Galarza vs. Miguel Casillas, Felix Diaz vs. Orlando Membreno.  So there isn't officially a Friday Night Fights this weekend, but this card is about as good as a lesser FNF, just you'll need to watch it in Spanish because of college basketball.  This is a bounceback fight for Lorenzo, who in his last bout lost a split decision to titlist Sebastian Sylvester.  Blue chip Dominican prospects Galarza and Diaz will be taking small steps up as well.

Fox Sports Net / Fox Sports Espanol, 10:00 p.m. Eastern, Sam Peter vs. Nagy Aguilera, Hernan Marquez vs. Richie Mepranum.  Peter vs. Aguilera is a title eliminator for the belt held by Vitali Klitschko.  Since losing to Eddie Chambers, Peter has supposedly refocused and gotten back to his old self in a series of off-TV bouts with new promoter Top Rank.  Aguilera knocked out Oleg Maskaev for this chance, bit he's a bit wild and rudimentary, and probably isn't much better than the guys Peter was knocking out before he fought Wladimir Klitschko.  This bout should be a good litmus test.  Marquez vs. Mepranum is potentially a great fight between prospects.  Marquez is an undefeated power punching southpaw who's only 21 years old, and he's exciting but VERY raw.  Mepranum is only 22 himself and has a couple of losses, but one was to a hotshot Thai prospect and the other was to recent titlist Denkaosan Kaovichit. Anthony Peterson, Omar Henry and Jose Benavidez Jr. are also slated to fight on the undercard, in case things run short.  Check your schedules on this one - the English language broadcast is probably pre-empted by college basketball in most places, but it should still be carried by Fox Sports Espanol.

Saturday, March 13

ARD (Germany), 5:00 p.m. Eastern, Marco Huck vs. Adam Richards, Alexander Povetkin vs. Javier Mora.  Huck is a fairly entertaining fighter who punches with authority, though has a tendency to fight in spurts.  Richards is an exciting fighter who goes all-out, and who has recently moved down to cruiserweight.  Team Richards has essentially guaranteed that this fight will end in a knockout - he's going for the KO, and if he doesn't get it, he'll get KOed trying.  Check back here near fight time, as we may have live round by round coverage of this one.

HBO PPV, 9:00 p.m. Eastern ($49.95), Manny Pacquiao vs. Joshua Clottey, Humberto Soto vs. David Diaz, Jose Luis Castillo vs. Alfonso Gomez, John Duddy vs. Michael Medina.  Click here to get full fight previews of each of these bouts.  Bad Left Hook will have live round by round coverage of this card.

Sunday, March 14

Brandhatton.com, 9:00 a.m. Eastern (2.99 pounds), Dean Harrison vs. Ben Lawler.  Ricky Hatton tries his entry into the internet pay per view realm with this minor card involving a fight for the Midlands light welterweight title.  About 8 other fights will be on the card as well.

Elsewhere in the world of boxing...

• On the German undercard, there are a few more decent fights.  Cruiserweight contender Yoan Pablo Hernandez will face unproven Argentinian Cesar David Crenz for an IBF trinket.  Alexander Frenkel takes a minor step up against durable and boring journeyman Michael Simms.   Kubrat Pulev continues to face really tough tests for someone with fewer than 10 pro fights as he faces Danny Batchelder. 
  
• On the UK undercard, 12-0 Tony Ballew will attempt to win the vacant Commonwealth light heavyweight title against Atoli Moore.  I realize that Ghanian fighters often have more of a record than Boxrec indicates, but this is the third or fourth time lately they've really scraped the bottom of the barrel to fill a vacant title.  Officially, Moore is 4-0.  The combined records of his opponents is 2-7.  COMBINED.  Note to the BBBoC - you folks have one of the few smaller belts that people actually take seriously.  They won't take it seriously for that much longer if you keep filling vacancies with fights like this. 
• Sam Soliman will get back in the ring in Australia against Shannon McMahon.  The fight is for a minor middleweight belt.   
• In Mexico, a couple of gatekeepers will go at it in what should be an exciting fight when Gamaliel Diaz faces Eden Marquez. 
• Paul Spadafora continues his comeback in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.  Again, he's facing a much smaller fighter with a decent looking record who is very unproven.  We'll see if he ever decides to step back up, or if he's content to just stay on the regional circuit.  It's pretty likely that he has much left after spending a good chunk of his prime in prison. 

With boxing just about to really kick into full swing for 2010, I'm checking my watch every other day or so for the time someone at ESPN, Fox Sports, Yahoo! Sports, Comedy Central, ET Online or the famed site Old Man Who Used to Like Marciano and Hasn't Seen Boxing in 11 Years to chime in and notice, "HEY!"

"You know what would help?!"

"Heavyweights!"

"People always liked heavyweights before."

"With heavyweights, yada yada, Marciano and Louis and Ali and Frazier and Foreman and Holmes and Tyson and Jersey Joe and I guess Holyfield, too, why not?!"

Personally, I think the sport of boxing does just fine without a dominant heavyweight division, but I also don't deny that of course the game could benefit from a headline-grabbing big man. I also don't deny that without the lettuce, a BLT is just a BT.

For those who might not pay close attention, here are some notable heavyweight fights coming your way. I figure after Pacquiao-Clottey one of those "Hey! The heavyweight division is dead!" articles will pop up, so let's burn this out now.

Friday, March 12: Samuel Peter (33-3, 26 KO) v. Nagy Aguilera (15-2, 10 KO)

The night before the big Pacquiao-Clottey show in Arlington, Top Rank will put an appetizer onto the table about a half hour up the road at the Gaylord Hotel in Grapevine. Sam Peter is still best-known for knocking down Wladimir Klitschko three times in a 2005 loss, and has in a lot of ways become a hype job because of that performance, despite the constant harping on Klitschko for having a glass jaw that follows the world champion around to this day. If Klitschko's chin is so bad, what's the big deal about Peter knocking him down?

That was the last time Wladimir looked so much as vulnerable, too. Since then, Peter has stopped four guys, and three of them were bums. The fourth, Oleg Maskaev, was stopped in under two minutes by Nagy Aguilera in his last fight. Oleg, for the record, recently said he plans to box on at age 41, and considering how giddy the WBC has proven to be to hand him mandatory challenger positions before, why not, I suppose.

Anyway, this could be a decent sleeper fight if all goes right. Since signing with Top Rank after losing two straight to Vitali Klitschko and Eddie Chambers, Peter has been slowly rebuilding his career. He's run over Marcus McGee, Ronald Bellamy and the free-moving land mass that is Gabe Brown in his last three. Though not a world-beater, Aguilera could be a fair step back up the ladder in terms of competition.

Most likely, though, he isn't, and Peter will blast him out without much trouble. Aguilera's only credible win is over Maskaev, who is really old and never took a punch all that well, and was caught cold.

Saturday, March 20: Wladimir Klitschko (53-3, 47 KO) v. Eddie Chambers (35-1, 18 KO)

Here we have the recognized world heavyweight champion, a dominant specimen who has hardly lost a moment of his last eight fights taking on the best American heavyweight there is today. Philadelphia's "Fast" Eddie Chambers has often heard that he should fight at cruiserweight, but if you ask the average American male what a cruiserweight is, you're probably going to hear about Rey Misterio Jr. 15 times before someone mentions what Evander Holyfield was doing before he was a heavyweight. There is no American money in the cruiserweight division. Chambers knows that. It's why he fights at heavyweight.

After a frustrating-to-watch loss to heralded Russian Alexander Povetkin in 2008, Chambers went back to square one and beat a few guys everyone knew he would beat, working out some kinks, trying new training methods, all that stuff. In his last two fights, he's decisioned Samuel Peter, and then in the best performance of his career, dominated previously-unbeaten Alexander Dimitrenko on hostile ground in Germany.

He returns to Germany to face Klitschko in a week and a half. And once again, here we have the man generally regarded as the world's best heavyweight, the reigning world champion, taking on the best American challenger there is ... and not a single, solitary U.S. TV network cares.

Not one. HBO passed, Showtime passed, ESPN passed, Versus passed. The Klitschkos hate pay-per-view, so instead of offering the bout through a reliable carrier like Integrated Sports, a company that specializes in fights like this that just can't find a TV home but deserve to, K2 Promotions has decided to put it on the internet for $15 at Klitschko.com.

If this doesn't signal that the time of the heavyweights is fully accepted as having passed its expiration date, what could?

March 20: Odlanier Solis (15-0, 11 KO) v. Carl Davis Drumond (26-2, 20 KO)

Here's the quick lowdown on this one. Solis is a dynamite fighter, a celebrated Cuban amateur who has stormed through 15 opponents as a pro. No one's really sure if he gives a crap about being a pro boxer or not, but thus far that hasn't hurt him. Drumond, a 35-year-old Costa Rican, has lost his last two in blowout fashion to Ruslan Chagaev and Derric Rossy. Solis will moida him.

April 3: David Haye (23-1, 21 KO) v. John Ruiz (44-8-1, 30 KO)

I'm a broken record on this, but I like this fight a lot. John Ruiz takes an incredible amount of flak, but outside of his years of being a terribly boring, sometimes offensive-to-watch, snooze-inducing galoot, he's kind of a representation of everything that goes opposite of what the division has been criticized for since Lennox Lewis retired.

Ruiz works hard. When he complains, he has a point. He'll fight anyone. He's never ducked anyone. Dogs and children like him. He has a game room. For the most part, I really like John Ruiz.

Now 38, Ruiz is stepping up to take another crack at a heavyweight title, as the WBA tries to wrest their precious away from David Haye, who is threatening to put on fights anyone cares about instead of that Ruiz-Chagaev-Nikolai Valuev triangle of terror the organization has held so dear, with only the occasional empty gesture toward Kali Meehan meant to interfere. I've said plenty that I think Ruiz has a genuine shot at upsetting Haye and taking the belt home with him, but that doesn't mean I think he actually will.

I also want to repeat myself on another point when it comes to this fight. The world's four heavyweight titles and the Ring Magazine world championship are split between Haye (WBA), Vitali Klitschko (WBC) and Wladimir Klitschko (Ring, WBO, IBF). All of them stay in great shape year-round. It's not a coincidence.

April 10: Evander Holyfield (42-10-2, 27 KO) v. Francois Botha (47-4-3, 28 KO)

Not content to peak with the 86 years of light heavyweight in Las Vegas on April 3, the Nevada State Athletic has given Evander Holyfield a new license so that 88 years of heavyweight can square off seven days later. This fight was "supposed to" take place in Uganda, which was announced in November. Anyone who had paid a shred of attention to anything to do with Holyfield in the last five years knew that wasn't going to happen, and shockingly it did not. But now apparently it's actually going to happen in Vegas. I hope the NSAC men and women that approved this sleep well at night.

Big Hype for This Fight: Holyfield hasn't fought since being robbed against Valuev in December 2008 in one of the all-time worst heavyweight title fights on this planet, and Botha is coming off of what he describes as a career-worst performance in an eight-round draw against Cuban Pedro Carrion. Who's excited?!

April 24: Cristobal Arreola (28-1, 25 KO) v. Tomasz Adamek (40-1, 27 KO)

We've talked plenty about this one already, but seriously. If you're reading this mostly out of boredom or on a whim, don't really follow boxing much, and you've gotten this far, this is the fight in this article that you need to see. Every time we say a heavyweight fight will be good, it isn't, but seriously, this one will be good. I promise! I can't promise. It might stink. Adamek might hide for 12 rounds while Arreola clumsily lumbers after him. I don't know. But chances are they're coming to inflict damage and get into the title hunt. Outside of one of the two of these guys fighting David Haye, this is the most exciting fight this division can offer.

May 29: Vitali Klitschko (39-2, 37 KO) v. Albert Sosnowski (45-2-1, 27 KO)

I really have nothing but admiration for the 38-year-old Vitali Klitschko, but unless something major happens before he retires in the near future, I'm always going to unfairly remember this terrific comeback run of his for his God awful fight with Kevin Johnson in December. And none of it was his fault, either. That fight being that bad was 100% on Kevin "Cowardly Lion" Johnson, who leaned, gabbed, ducked, dodged, ran, and yakked for 36 minutes, driving his corner crazy and driving spectators to drink.

It was almost as if Vitali had sat on the sidelines watching travesties like Valuev's fights and his brother's mind-numbing "fight" with Sultan Ibragimov, and he responded with a big, "Oh yeah?! Watch this!"

As for this fight with Sosnowski, I'll let Brickhaus sum it up:

"That's just an awful fight. This shouldn’t go longer than 4 rounds. I guess at least he'll get money from Polsat this way. This is seriously a sorry, sorry matchup. This is worse than fighting Ray Austin or Alexander Dimitrenko or 47 year old Evander Holyfield."

Our own Ted Sares offered disbelief as well, since Sosnowski was nearly knocked out by Zuri Lawrence (24-15-4, 0 KO) in a pretty recent fight.

As for me, I'll add this gem: This fight sucks, and everyone involved knows it.

In Summary

I hope you're excited for the whirlwind schedule of heavyweight fights!

As Manny Pacquiao and Joshua Clottey make their final preparations for Saturday's fight, HBO Boxing is looking back at two past fights featuring the combatants who will main event at Cowboys Stadium.

First up, Joshua Clottey's August 2008 win over Zab Judah. Judah is the only fighter on Clottey's resume who even remotely compares to Pacquiao -- a fast, darting southpaw, but one who didn't have the power to hurt Clottey, and who also couldn't break down his defense for any sustained amount of time. Watching the fight again, it's easy to say that had Clottey been more active, Judah might well not have won any rounds at all. When they both throw, Clottey imposed his will for the most part.

Here's the full fight, courtesy HBO:

That stands to this day as the biggest win for Clottey, though I wouldn't say it was his best performance.

Also featured is Manny Pacquiao's ferocious breaking down of Miguel Cotto from last November, the biggest fight of 2009 and one that made Pacquiao a five-weight titleholder. I've watched this fight about 25 times by now, and every time I'm taken aback at just how quickly Pacquiao's dynamic offense turns this fight completely in his favor. I had Cotto winning the first, and had him en route to round wins in the third and fourth before Pacquiao floored him in both rounds. Cotto was really good on this night, at least early, and Pacquiao just beat him down. He couldn't keep up with Manny's pace.

On that November night, Cotto stood as the most imposing challenge of Pacquiao's career, and Pacquiao left him in the dust. Clottey is thicker and physically stronger than Cotto, and he has a tendency to lay back more. He's also a much better defensive boxer and I wager that he's got better punch resistance, too.

These two fights probably do offer the best insight for the Pacquiao-Clottey matchup. For HBO subscribers who don't want to watch on computer monitors, HBO On Demand does have both fights up right now in HD.