By Dan Ambrose: WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (36-2, 29 KO’s) has already been knocked out once by Antonio Margarito (38-7, 27 KO’s) three years ago when Margarito left Cotto a bloody and battered mess in an 11th round TKO win in 2008.

Cotto’s face looked as if it had gone through a meat grinder, and it was a good thing that he chose to take a knee and surrender rather than stay on his feet for more punishment. Margarito was simply an unstoppable tornado on that night.

Cotto and Margarito have had mixed luck since then, with Cotto winning bouts against carefully selected opposition but getting torn apart when he was put in with someone good in Manny Pacquiao. Margarito also was beaten by Pacquiao last year, and hasn’t won a fight since he beat Roberto Garcia by a 10 round decision last year in May.

Margarito suffered a bad injury to his right eye in the loss to Pacquiao, but after a couple of surgeries the eye appears to be as good as new. But even if it’s not, Margarito will only need one good eye to continue his battering of Cotto. If you watched the fight between them last time it was pretty clear that Margarito had Cotto’s number.

The size, power and conditioning were all factors in Margarito’s favor in that fight. I suspect nothing will have changed in their rematch. Margarito is still in great shape, as we’ve seen in his recent training video and he can still throw with a lot of power.

Margarito may have lost to Pacquiao but he gave him a lot more problems than Cotto did. Pacquiao said afterwards that Margarito was one of his toughest fights of his career due to the power and the size of Margarito. Cotto really can only do one thing and that’s run if he doesn’t want to get knocked out again. But he’s not going to be able to run for the full 12 rounds. He’s going to have to stand and fight. That’s where I see Cotto getting blasted out again.