By Dan Ambrose: WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (36-2, 29 KO’s) flushed down the toilet the only chance he had to beat the tough Mexican Antonio Margarito (38-7, 27 KO’s) in their rematch on December 3rd by sacking trainer Emanuel Steward after only two fights with him.

Steward had taught Cotto how to keep from getting his head pulverized by teaching him to move and jab instead of slug. Now Cotto is back to square one about to face the punching machine Margarito that destroyed him three years ago.

Without the confidence and brain power that Steward would have instilled in Cotto, he’s back to where he started from about to face a guy that he’s not equipped to beat in Margarito.

You’ve got to now consider Margarito the favorite to win the fight now. But even if Steward was working as Cotto’s trainer, you’d still have to favor Margarito because Cotto failed to prove that he could stand up to Margarito for any length of time without getting pummeled.

That’s the problem. There isn’t anything that Cotto can do other than run. We saw in his last fight against 38-year-old Ricardo Mayorga that Cotto couldn’t slug even with him. Cotto was forced to run because he couldn’t handle the slugging power from Mayorga.

But against Margarito it’s going to be much, much worse because he’s so much better at cutting off the ring compared to Mayorga and he won’t try and rest against the ropes. He’ll keep his forward one-direction movement and force Cotto to run until his legs can no longer carry him. This is exactly what happened in their previous fight and what will happen on December 3rd.

Cotto is going to need some new tricks if he’s to win, and frankly there’s no tricks that can be taught to him that will get him past Margarito. He’s in serious trouble.