By Dan Ambrose: For a fighter that no longer holds a world belt and who is coming off of a 12 round decision loss in his last fight, Miguel Cotto (37-3. 30 KO’s) is going to be making out like a bandit on Saturday with his reported $1 million+ payday he’ll be getting for his fight against WBA World junior middleweight champion Austin Trout (25-0, 14 KO’s) at the Madison Square Garden in New York.

However, being a world title holder isn’t what it’s cracked up to be nowadays, because the 27-year-old Trout will be getting only $240,000 for this non pay per view bout which will be televised on Showtime.

Cotto’s big payday tells you that not only does a fighter not need to be a world champion to get a huge payday, but it’s also okay that he’s coming off of a loss. He’s headlining despite the fact that he was soundly beaten by Floyd Mayweather Jr. last May and almost knocked out. Of course, getting paydays like this won’t go on forever for Cotto if he keeps getting beaten. He’s going to have to defeat Trout if he wants to make sure his paydays remain high because fighters that lose over and over again find their paydays dropping real quick.

The boxing public is still giving Cotto a lot of support because of his past accomplishments and due to his exciting style. But if Trout stomps Cotto on Saturday and makes it look easy, I don’t see Cotto’s next payday being nearly as big unless he gets selected by either Mayweather or Manny Pacquiao to fight. Those guys will take a lot of heat if they choose Cotto if he gets beaten by Trout, because that would mean that Cotto has lost his last two fights and that’s not all that appealing for boxing fans to have to pay to see a fight where one of the fighters is getting beaten repeatedly.