By Dan Ambrose: It’s been two years now since Miguel Cotto was battered and bruised in losing to Manny Pacquiao by a 12th round TKO in November 2009. Cotto looked awful in that fight after the first couple of rounds and seemed to be in the survival mode until being blasted out in the 12th round under a stiff bombardment from Pacquiao With help from his promoter Bob Arum, who has set him up with three winnable fights, Cotto has won his last three rounds and now feels he deserves a big money rematch with Pacquiao next.

So, has the 31-year-old Cotto earned the right to fight Pacquiao again with his three wins over 38-year-old Ricardo Mayorga, Yuri Foreman and Antonio Margarito or does Cotto actually need to fight someone that isn’t physically damaged and/or old? Is it too soon for Cotto to get another crack at Pacquiao?

Here’s my take: I personally think if Cotto never fights Pacquiao again it’ll be too soon. I mean who wants to see Pacquiao slaughter Cotto again for however many rounds it lasts? I know I don’t, not when the pay per view price tag that Arum puts on the fight will likely be $55. Since it would be another mismatch they’d have to put it on regular cable to entice me to see Cotto getting beaten black and blue again. He’s just too much of a punching bag for me to want to see them fight again.

As far as Cotto having earned another shot against Pacquiao due to Cotto’s three recent victories. If that’s all it takes for a fighter to get a shot against Pacquiao then there needs to be a revolving door in front of the ring for Pacquiao to take on guys that are softly matched to get title shots, because facing guys like the one-legged Foreman, an old Mayorga and Margarito with a badly damaged right eye, that’s just not right.

If Cotto wants to fight Pacquiao again then I think Cotto needs to beat the following fighters to earn the shot: Paul Williams, Erislandy Lara, Vanes Martirosyan, Saul Alvarez, Alfredo Angulo, Austin Trout, Sergiy Dzinziruk, Delvin Rodriguez and James Kirkland. If Cotto beat all those guys, then I think he deserves a shot at Pacquiao but not before. These are the guys that Cotto should have been fighting the last two years since of Mayorga, Foreman and Margarito. Come on, Foreman came into the fight with a bad knee, and Mayorga was just plain old. And everyone already knows that Margarito came into the last Cotto fight having had three recent eye surgeries on his right eye. And you think Cotto now deserves a rematch with Pacquiao with those flimsy victories? Even the Margarito win was a shaky one because the fight was halted after the 9th when Margarito was turning the fight around.