By Jason Kim: With his 10th round TKO loss to WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto last weekend, 33-year-old Antonio Margarito has now lost three out of his last four fights dating back to 2009.

While it’s nice that Margarito gave Cotto a tough fight, the truth of the matter is he lost every round of the fight against Cotto and looked slow throughout the fight. But more of a problem than his lack of diminishing hand speed and problems winning fights is Margarito’s damaged right eye.

The eye has had two surgeries on it after Margarito’s right orbital bone was broken in his loss to WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao last year, and it closed quickly when Cotto landed shots on it during the fight last Saturday night. Margarito wants to continue fighting, but the eye will likely swell up in the future when he gets hit and may limit what he can do in the ring.

After getting good money in fights against Cotto, Pacquiao and Shane Mosley in the past two years, it’s doubtful that Margarito is going to want to get in with the hungry younger fighters that are still trying to make a name for himself in the junior middleweight division like James Kirkland and Vanes Martirosyan. And if Margarito does take on anyone halfway decent, he could be stopped in a similar manner as last weekend.

Margarito has taken a lot of punishment in three of his last four fights and those bouts have taken a lot out of him. His right eye was closed in the Cotto fight last weekend and it’s still too early to tell whether the eye suffered any further damage.

His promoter Bob Arum wants Margarito to take some time off and recover from the Cotto fight before he starts looking at what he wants to do with Margarito in the future. Arum is excellent at matchmaking and you can be sure that he’ll put Margarito in a winnable fight until he can get him another good payday against one of his top fighters. But at this point it’s difficult to see Margarito being anything more than an opponent for Arum’s top fighters in the future.