By Dan Ambrose: WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (37-2, 30 KO’s) says he can handle whatever game plan that his opponent Floyd Mayweather Jr. brings into their fight next month on May 5th, but Cotto doubts that Mayweather will be ready for he brings to the fight in terms of fire power.

Cotto said this about a fight with Mayweather as quoted by RingTV “I’m ready for anything that Floyd Mayweather can bring to me on May 5. The question is whether or not Floyd is ready for anything that Miguel Cotto brings to him.”

If this was a toe-to-toe fight or a fight between Cotto and a stationary fighter then I would give Cotto a decent chance of getting a stoppage win, because he’s the better puncher and the better brawler compared to Mayweather. That’s been Cotto’s game plan his entire career up until recently when first trainer Emanuel Steward began tinkering with Cotto’s style to turn him into a boxer/puncher instead of just a puncher. Pedro Diaz, Cotto’s new trainer, is basically following in the same footsteps that Steward set out by having Cotto box more and slug less. But as far as a Mayweather goes, Cotto won’t have him standing in there begging to be hit like Antonio Margarito was last December in Cotto’s win by a 10th round doctor’s stoppage.

Mayweather will use movement, so he won’t have to experience what Cotto brings to the fight. Cotto’s fireworks won’t get lit on May 5th, and he’ll go down in defeat without even getting the chance to fire off his best shots. That’s too bad because it means he’ll likely get picked apart and get pretty well embarrassed. I see Cotto as being a clone of Victor Ortiz for Mayweather. In other words a clumsy fighter without the talent or the footwork to compete with Mayweather.

The only thing I’m hoping is that Cotto doesn’t start fouling with the low blows when things aren’t going his way and it’s starting to look bleak for him. We’ve seen Cotto accidentally land crippling low blows in points of his fights when things are looking bad for him. If Cotto starts fouling, Mayweather may opt to return fire by sneaking in shots when Cotto isn’t ready to take them. As popular as Mayweather is, I can’t see the judges taking points away from him if he’s retaliating against Cotto for one of his low blow shots. I could be wrong but I don’t think I will be.