By Dan Ambrose: If trainer Emanuel Steward has his way his fighter WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (36-2, 29 KO’s) will fight Antonio Margarito next in a rematch in July, then Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. and finally a rematch with Manny Pacquiao. I hate the thought of Cotto fighting Pacquiao again without Cotto fighting someone really good that can truly test him.

Cotto hasn’t won a meaningful fight for at lest four years since his win over Shane Mosley in 2007 in my view. In between that, Cotto has lost to Pacquiao and Margarito while beating the likes of Michael Jennings, Joshua Clottey [barely], Yuri Foreman and Ricardo Mayorga. Those aren’t really tough fights for Cotto and he hasn’t been in with guys that would have a good chance of beating him like Alfredo Angulo, Erislandy Lara, James Kirland, Sergiy Dzinziruk, Sergio Martinez or Vanes Martirosyan.

I’d much prefer to see Cotto beat at least one of those fighters before he’s given a rematch with Pacquiao. Beating Margarito, who looks shot to me, and Chavez Jr. isn’t good enough in my book for Cotto to get a rematch with Pacquiao. Chavez Jr. looks badly flawed an I don’t see him as a top tier middleweight. I can maybe see Chavez Jr. as a bottom 15 fringe contender type fighter, but not someone that you could point to as a significant opponent that would prove anything about Cotto.

I just don’t think Cotto is the same fighter he once was after losing to Margarito, and the fact that Cotto is still winning seems more of the result of him being put in with guys that he can beat rather than him improving. I didn’t see anything from Cotto’s performance against Mayorga that tells me that he deserves a rematch with Pacquiao right now. I would change my mind if Cotto were to be matched against someone like Lara, Angulo, Martinez, Martirosyan, Dzinziruk or Kirkland and he were to come out on top. I see Cotto getting knocked out by all of them.