By Dan Ambrose: Miguel Cotto (37-3, 30 KO’s) lost his last fight, and is kind of at the end of his rope with his bout this Saturday night against WBA World junior middleweight champion Austin Trout (25-0, 14 KO’s) in New York. Cotto really doesn’t have a lot of directions he can go in right now in the junior middleweight division if he loses to Trout, because Cotto doesn’t match-up well with WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez.

I don’t expect Cotto to be able to get that fight if he loses to Trout. I suppose Cotto could look to take on IBF 154 lb champion Cornelius Bundrage or WBO champion Zaurbek Baysangurov, but those are tough fights too for Cotto. I think Bundrage would beat him, and Baysangurov would be a tough fight as well.

Baysangurov is probably the best for Cotto if he wants to pick up a paper title like the one he got when he beat Yuri Foreman when he was briefly the WBA junior middleweight belt holder. Bob Arum of Top Rank matched Cotto against the beatable Foreman rather than a more dangerous champion, and Cotto was able to pick up a strap.

Could we see something similar with Cotto being positioned to fight Baysangurov just so that Cotto could get a belt? I wouldn’t be surprised at all, because Bundrage is very dangerous because of his power and size. He could do all the things that a prime version of Antonio Margarito did to Cotto in 2008.

Trout is going to give Cotto a lot of problems on Saturday with his size and skills, and I’m expecting Cotto to take a beating in that fight and lose. I don’t see how Cotto can win this one, because he’s too old and too small to beat Trout. This isn’t a good fight match-up for Cotto because Trout is a natural junior middleweight, and not someone that has moved up in weight from welterweight like a lot of the guys that Cotto has been facing since he moved up to 154 himself. Trout is bigger and he fights good against smaller fighters like the 5’7″ Cotto.