By Dan Ambrose: Gabriel Penagaricano, the legal adviser for former WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (37-3, 30 KO’s), says Cotto won’t be fighting in Golden Boy Promotions president Oscar De La Hoya’s 154 pound tournament that he recently mentioned. Instead of fighting in the tourney, Cotto will be back in the ring on December 1st against an opponent still to be determined.

Penagaricano told Primerahora “There will be an official announcement soon, but it’s public knowledge that it will definitely be in New York. It’s [the 154 pound tourney] not something I discussed with Miguel, but he is at a level where he enjoys the privilege of choosing his opponents fight and where.”

Yes, it would be silly for Cotto to take part in De La Hoya’s 154 lb tourney, if it ever does take place, because Cotto is already a star and doesn’t need the tourney to be in demand. To be sure, Cotto would be a lot more popular if he took part in the tournament and came out as the champion at the end.

However, there’s also a high possibility that Cotto would be quickly eliminated from the tournament if he had to fight contestants like Erislandy Lara, Cornelius Bundrage, Austin Trout, Saul Alvarez, James Kirkland and Alfredo Angulo. I see Cotto losing to most if not all of those guys. It’s not that Cotto doesn’t have talent, because he’s a good fighter. However, those are big 154 pound fighters and they would have the size advantage over Cotto to where it would be very tough for him to compete.

Bob Arum has done a marvelous job of bringing Cotto back from his defeats against Antonio Margarito and Manny Pacquiao to beat guys like Yuri Foreman, Ricardo Mayorga and a Margarito after his eye surgery. However, those guys are much different fighters from the younger guys like Lara, Trout, Alvarez and Kirkland. Bundrage isn’t young at 39, but he’s got big power and I think he’d make a mess of Cotto if they were to fight.