By Dan Ambrose: The last time Miguel Cotto was taken out by Antonio Margarito, Cotto ran out of gas in the 10th and was battered until being stopped in the 11th.

After Margarito’s hand wrap scandal surfaced, his win over Cotto was questioned and not considered legitimate by a lot of boxing fans, even by Cotto. But this time there can’t be any excuses if Cotto doesn’t win.

The hand wraps aren’t going to be inspected with a fine tooth comb before and after their December 3rd fight at Madison Square Garden in New York, and Cotto has been working hard on his conditioning to prevent him from gassing out again.

This time if Cotto loses to Margarito, it’s because he was beaten by the better fighter. I think it’s hogwash that Margarito had loaded gloves for the Cotto-Margarito fight in 2008. Margarito was simply the better conditioned athlete in that fight, and all he did was hang around until Cotto could no longer run.

At that point, Cotto had nothing on his punches and wasn’t able to move. He was a sitting duck for Margarito’s uppercuts when Cotto decided to fight off the ropes. Margarito loves attacking opponents that position themselves against the ropes the way that Cotto was doing.

Cotto had no choice; his legs were too weak to carry him around the ring by the 10th, and once he got hurt from a big uppercut from Margarito in the 10th, Cotto’s legs really stopped working. I suspect the December 3rd rematch will play out in the same way as the first fight.

Cotto isn’t stupid enough to think he can go one one one with Margarito and last. Cotto doesn’t have the chin, the size or the skin for that kind of fight. Margarito would mow him down in two or three rounds if Cotto tried to stand and make a fight of it. What we’ll see instead from Cotto is a ton of running and jabbing while looking to win the fight by a 12 round decision.