By Dan Ambrose: WBA World junior middleweight champion Austin Trout (25-0, 14 KO’s) has one of the best jabs in the junior middleweight division and he’s got the arm length to deliver it without getting hit in return. On December 1st, Trout is going to have the opportunity to see what his jab can do to the scar tissue around his opponent Miguel Cotto’s eyes when they meet at the Madison Square Garden, in New York, New York, USA.

Cotto (37-3, 30 KO’s) has suffered numerous cuts around both eyes during his long 11-year pro career and it’s like a field full of lines and cracks from where he was cut in previous battles. Cotto has lost only three fights but he’s been slicked up badly in many of his bouts and he’s not that great of a fighter once he sees his own blood. The southpaw Trout will have a big advantage if he can get Cotto bleeding in one or both of his eyes from his jabs.

That right there might be all that Trout needs to win the fight, because Cotto will do the work for him if by backing off with his offense. We’ve already see Cotto take a couple of knees in fight with Antonio Margarito, and I didn’t like the way Cotto was starting to look in the second fight with Margarito before the ringside doctor halted the fight. Margarito was turning the fight around and could have stopped Cotto in the last three rounds if not for the doctor stopping it due to Margarito’s right eye partially closing.

To be honest, Cotto is more of a blown up light welterweight than an actual junior middleweight. Cotto may be fighting at 154 now, but his frame is more of a 140 pounder, which is where he started his career at. In contrast, Trout is a big junior middleweight and he’s been fighting at this weight since day one when he started his career in 2005. Trout actually has the size to fight at middleweight, but he likes 154. You can’t blame Trout for doing that, because he gets to fight a lot of smaller guys than him and that gives him a real advantage.