By Dan Ambrose: Former WBA light middleweight champion Miguel Cotto will be fighting on December 1st in Madison Square Garden in New York. He doesn’t have an opponent ironed out for this date but there’s speculation that Floyd Mayweather Jr. will take the rematch given how much money he made fighting Cotto last month.

However, there’s still a chance that Mayweather Jr. won’t agree to take the fight because he won’t have enough time to get ready because of his 87-day jail sentence that he’s currently serving in Las Vegas. By time that Mayweather Jr. is released in late August, he’ll likely be atrophied from having been locked up in a tiny cell for 23 hours a day. Even if he does push-ups, Mayweather’s conditioning will still be poor to the point where even three months of continual exercise won’t get him back to where he was before he began his jail sentence.

Cotto has a small chance of facing Manny Pacquiao, but that’ll require for Cotto to melt down to 147lbs and fight on November 10th. He can’t expect Pacquiao to fight on December 1st and nor can he expect Pacquiao to agree to fighting him at a catchweight of 150 pounds. That isn’t going to happen, and if Pacquiao senses Cotto is desperate for a fight, it really won’t happen.

WBC junior middleweight champion Saul Alvarez is also off the table for Cotto, because Alvarez is already fighting on September 15th and they’re looking at some pretty poor choices for Alvarez. He won’t be able to come back by December 1st to fight Cotto in New York, Avarez destroys his next opponent in the 1st round. They’d want time to promote the fight and all that will take more than two months.

Cotto also can’t fight the winner of the September 15th fight between WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. and Sergio Martinez on December 1st, because like Alvarez, the winner of that fight won’t be able to jump back in the ring in such a short period of time to face Cotto.

Cotto is basically screwed up up Mayweather Jr. decides not to fight him in December. There won’t be anyone worth fighting, and Cotto could lose if he faces a semi-decent junior middleweight. A loss for Cotto against a non-star would ruin his chances of a Mayweather and Pacquiao rematch. The only way I could see one of those fighters facing Cotto again after a Cotto loss is if Cotto comes up with some lame excuses that the boxing public can swallow hook like and sinker.