By Dan Ambrose: Miguel Cotto’s trainer Emanuel Steward says he would prefer not to reward Antonio Margarito with a rematch after Margarito was found to have a plaster-like substance on his hand wraps before his fight with Shane Mosley last year in January. Steward, who recently started training Cotto, says he would prefer that Cotto go after a rematch with Manny Pacquiao rather than face Margarito again and he would also like to see Cotto fight at welterweight instead of fighting against the bigger fighters at junior middleweight.

Here is what Steward had to say on East Side Boxing’s On the Ropes program: “I would like to see him fight more in the welterweight area. I still think even though he’s a junior middleweight, there’s a big height discrepancy in some of the guys who are so much taller, but height he said doesn’t bother him. I think Pacquiao would be better and the one I would like to see, though. I would like to see Pacquiao. Based on what Margarito has been found guilty of, I just hate to even reward him by seeing him come into a big mega million dollar fight after what he did. I think he should fight some fights first and try work himself back up. I think it’s not fair for him to be given these big super fights right away.”

It’s kind of an easy decision for Steward to make, because Pacquiao would bring in a lot more money than a rematch against Margarito. There’s also the question of whether Margarito would be able to get his boxing license back to fight in the United States. If not, then Cotto would have to fight Margarito in Mexico, where Margarito would have a big advantage because the fight would be in his home country and it would likely take place in a stadium.

I don’t think Steward has anything to worry about as far as Cotto trying to defend his newly captured WBA junior middleweight title, which he won last Saturday night with his 9th round TKO over Yuri Foreman at Yankee Stadium. Cotto probably went after the title to lure Pacquiao into going after it, because Pacquiao wants to win an 8th world title before he retires.

I’m sure Cotto had advice to go after this title in order to make a selling point for a Cotto-Pacquiao rematch. Without the title, it would be hard for Cotto’s promoter to sell a rematch between Cotto and Pacquiao to the boxing public, because their fight last year in November was a pitiful mismatch with Pacquiao dominating Cotto for 11 rounds and then stopping him in the 12th.

But with the WBA title in his possession, Cotto has something going for him that makes him a much more appealing opponent for Pacquiao. But Steward is right about there being a big height discrepancy for the 5’7” Cotto if he chooses to stay at junior middleweight. He would likely have a lot of problems if he stayed at this weight and tried to defend it against the likes of Alfredo Angulo and James Kirkland, among many others.