By Dan Ambrose: Having essentially abandoned all the good teaching that he got from former trainer Emanuel Steward with the signing of a new trainer in Pedro Diaz, WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (37-2, 30 KO’s) has fallen backwards into his old way of fighting with the bent forward position and the squaring himself in front of his opponents.

Cotto has regressed at the worst possible time for him as he gets ready to face Floyd Mayweather Jr. (42-0. 26 KO’s) on May 5th.

Mayweather by now has seen that Cotto is fighting in his old style and is leaning forward when he fights, leading his head an inviting target for Mayweather’s sharp uppercuts. In looking at some of Mayweather’s recent training video, I can see that Mayweather is already training for Cotto’s style by throwing a lot of uppercuts against a sparring partner that is bent forward in the same way as Cotto will likely be on May 5th.

Mayweather looks perfect with uppercuts and that’s with headgear and large boxing gloves on. Just imagine what it’ll be like with no head gear and the lighter punching gloves for Mayweather when he fights Cotto at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Cotto will bust up nicely if Mayweather is able to land even a small handful of his best uppercuts. Those shots are wicked and have a lot of power and torque. Even if Cotto didn’t have rice paper skin, Mayweather’s shots would still likely cut Cotto with him bent forward like he’s looking for a lost watch on the canvas.

My advice for Cotto would be for him to straighten up, use his jab and move around the ring. Mayweather will slice him up if he comes into the fight with the poor fighting style from his last fight against Antonio Margarito. I doubt Cotto will follow my advice because he seems to have completely regressed to an earlier stage of development. It’s unfortunate but Cotto has slipped back into his bent over fighting style of his ugly past and is now ripe for getting clowned by Mayweather on May 5th. Emanuel Steward was smart enough to recognize that Cotto’s fighting style was completely flawed, and that’s why he made great pains to try and change it. Steward had brief success with helping Cotto during his time as his trainer. But when you have a person with a bad habit like Cotto, it takes constant reminders to keep them on the right path. Cotto has slipped off the path with his new trainer Pedro Diaz and he’s heading for oblivion on May 5th.