By Chris Williams: Teddy Atlas, an expert analyst for ESPN2 Friday Night Fights, thinks that WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto isn’t a legitimate 154 pounder and he doesn’t see him having much of any advantages against undefeated Floyd Mayweather Jr. when the two fighters go at it next month on May 5th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Atlas sees Cotto as being too limited to get the job done against Mayweather.

Atlas said this when asked how Cotto will do against Mayweather: “Not too good. First of all, you have to remember Cotto spent most of his career at junior welterweight. So he is not a junior middleweight. Okay, he’s bigger and stronger. Does that make him faster? No. Does that make him harder to hit? No. He’s not that hard to hit. He’s predictable. Pacquiao showed that. Pacquiao dominated that fight. Floyd is just as fast. Maybe a little slower than Pacquiao. He’s got all the speed in the world. He’s [Floyd] harder to hit than Pacquiao. I don’t see Cotto has having a chance here just because he’s the bigger guy. He’s still too easy too hit; still too slow. The big difference between Floyd and Pacquiao is, Floyd won’t throw as many. He won’t be as easy to hit as Pacquiao, but he’ll be just as fast. And man, he’s hard to hit…Floyd is going to be fine, but I don’t know about Cotto.”

I agree with Atlas. Cotto so easy to hit, and he’s not that fast. And in his recent win over a pretty well beat up and slowed Antonio Margarito left more questions than answers when the ringside referee stopped the fight just when Margarito was turning the fight around. I think Cotto would have been knocked out by Margarito if the fight had gone a little longer, and this is a slower, more rusty version of Margarito.

Cotto won’t be able to deal with Mayweather’s hand speed because he doesn’t have any hand speed of his own. Cotto will be too easy to hit and will probably get cut up before long in the fight. And Atlas is right about Cotto not being a legitimate 154 pounder. He may weigh over 154, but his frame is that of a 140 pounder. He’s going to have problems against Mayweather, and if he ever faces legitimate 154 pounders like James Kirkland, Vanes Martirosyan and Erislandy Lara, Cotto will likely get stopped.