By Dan Ambrose: WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto is starting to make noises about a rematch with WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao and even said that he thinks he can beat Pacquiao on Tuesday. Given that Cotto and Pacquiao fight for the same Top Rank stable, there is a very good chance that Cotto could end up facing Pacquiao sometime in 2012 if not in his next fight.

The fight might even happen next if Bob Arum, his promoter, isn’t able for whatever reason to put a fight together with Floyd Mayweather Jr. That kind of leaves Cotto in a good position to get the Pacquiao fight, because he’s the best available fighter near the same weight class as Pacquiao in Arum’s stable. But does Cotto really deserve a rematch with Pacquiao? Their fight in 2009 was a terrible mismatch with Pacquiao stopping a battered Cotto in the 12th round. To be sure, Cotto has won his last three fights since then over Yuri Foreman, Ricardo Mayorga and Antonio Margarito.

However, those wins don’t erase the fact that Pacquiao easily beat Cotto last time. Nothing much changed since then other than Cotto has been matched against three vulnerable fighters. Cotto hasn’t taken on any of the dangerous fighters at 154 like James Kirkland, Saul Alvarez, Vanes Martirosyan, Alfredo Angulo, Erislandy Lara, Austin Trout, Paul Williams, Carlos Molina or Cornelius Bundradge. Arum has conveniently steered Cotto around those guys and put him in with vulnerable fighters , some of them seemingly on their last legs.

I know Cotto thinks he’s really improved as a fighter due to his extra movement he’s making now and his clinching. But I don’t think any of that would matter in a rematch with Pacquiao because he’s so quick. I think it would be a terrible fight to be honest.

I wonder if Margarito will soon get his second crack Pacquiao as well by Arum. I think Margarito deserves a rematch with Pacquiao much more than Cotto, because Margarito gave Pacquiao more problems than Cotto. That’s not saying anything because Pacquiao beat both of them easily, but it just shows you what a joke a rematch between Pacquiao and Cotto is. Like the mismatches that Arum set up between Pacquiao and Margarito, Pacquiao and 40-year-old Shane Mosley and Pacquiao and Joshua Clottey, it probably won’t stop Arum from putting Cotto back in with Pacquiao even though it won’t change anything in terms of it being a different kind of fight.

Cotto got dominated last time and he’ll get dominated again. I think it’s bad for boxing to set up fights that are mismatches on paper, and if Arum wants to put that fight together between Cotto and Pacquiao, he should at least wait until Cotto fights someone that is able bodied and not someone that is coming into fight with only one good leg, one good eye or someone almost 40 years-old.

I wouldn’t want to see Pacquiao slaughter Cotto again because there would be no mystery about it. As soon as the fight is signed, Cotto would be a fighter destined for a bad loss. Who wants to see that if you to pay $54.95 or highter to watch it. I wouldn’t mind seeing it for kicks but not if I had to pay to see it. It’s like a freebie fight because of the one-sided nature and not worth PPV.