Mayorga talks big, wants Manny Pacquiao

There’s never any lack of excitement when Ricardo Mayorga is around.

Mayorga was his usual brash self on a conference call with reporters on Tuesday, promoting his Showtime pay-per-view fight against WBA 154-pound champion Miguel Cotto. Mayorga and Cotto will square off on March 12 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.

Mayorga, who called Cotto and his trainer Emanuel Steward “clowns” and “failures” for predicting an early knockout, said he has a grand plan that reaches beyond Cotto.

Said Mayorga: “This is the fight where I’m going to impose my will. So much so – because I want that fight so bad with [Manny] Pacquiao – that if I don’t beat Cotto by knockout and I happen to beat him by decision then I don’t feel like I’m deserving of a fight with Pacquiao. So that’s how strongly I feel I’m going to win this fight.”

Mayorga verses Pacquiao? That certainly hasn’t been broached by anyone in or outside of the industry. But Mayorga has always talked big and he continued his assault on both Cotto and Pacquiao.

“Manny is a human being just like everyone else. He’s not invincible like God,” Mayorga said. “The advantage he has is that when people step into the ring with him they fight with fear and they are very tentative. I would not come in with any fear and would not be tentative.”

As for Cotto, Mayorga’s boasting appeared to go in one ear and out the other.

“I don’t care what he is saying about me,” Cotto said. “He’s always going to be talking but, as everyone knows, the fight starts when you enter the ring and that’s where I’m going to win the fight; in the ring.”

Cotto said he’s as nimble as he has been in the last three years and expects to have no problems hitting Mayorga.

“I feel so much better with my movement now in 2011 than I did back in 2008 and 2009,” Cotto said. “I’m pretty happy with the way I’m training now. My fans know that Miguel Cotto always comes to fight and always puts on a show.”