Cotto's camp ready for possible rematch with Pacquiao

Emanuel Steward, trainer of World Boxing Association (WBA) super welterweight champion Miguel Cotto, expressed confidence that his ward will come out a better fighter if given a chance for a rematch with pound-for-pound king Manny Pacquiao.

Cotto, who knocked out Yuri Foreman for his third world title last week in New York City, is considered the plan B for Pacquiao's November 13 fight date should a summit meeting with Floyd Mayweather Jr. fail to materialize.

Former welterweight champion Antonio Margarito of Tijuana, Mexico has also been named as a possible opponent.

"I would very much entertain a rematch with Pacquiao and Cotto," Steward, an International Boxing Hall of Fame inductee, told GMANews.TV.

"It would be very different if they fight again now that [Cotto] has his team put together just the way he wants it. He's just a better balanced fighter now. He will be able to utilize his boxing talents a lot more than the last fight where he fought with his head down too low. Manny was actually the taller fighter in the fight and he's only 5'6". Miguel has a lot more mental confidence now than he did before."

Outside of the opportunity to win an eighth world title in as many divisions, a rematch with Cotto would prove little for the boxer who won a congressional seat in the province of Sarangani.

Then the reigning World Boxing Organization (WBO) welterweight champion, Cotto was highly competitive for the first two rounds before being dropped in the third and fourth rounds.

The fight degenerated into a one-sided affair until the referee halted the fight midway into the 12th round.

When asked whether a Cotto rematch appealed to him, Pacquiao's trainer Freddie Roach replied, "Who would want to see Cotto get his ass kicked again?"

Roach went on to dismiss Cotto's ninth round body shot knockout of Foreman, crediting most of the result to the knee injury Foreman suffered in the seventh round.

"I won't even respond to that," said Steward, who also trains heavyweight champion Vladimir Klitschko. "If you look at the first three or four rounds, nothing was wrong with Foreman's knee and Cotto was still winning the fight. With or without the knee problem, Cotto would have finished him in the ninth or tenth round."

Steward pointed to the Foreman fight, which attracted over 20,700 fans to Yankee Stadium, as evidence of Cotto's continued marketability.

Steward said that it is the opponents that he has faced -- and not those who have beaten him -- that defined the Puerto Rican fighter's legacy.

"Even though he's lost fights, he's lost to top fighters and he's never dodged anyone. I think that's what the fans respect about him, that he's been consistently fighting the best fighters out there. Losing to the best endears you to fans much more than if you fight safe fights all the time, much like it did for Oscar de la Hoya."

The Foreman clash was Cotto's first fight working with Steward.

Cotto was trained by long-time assistant trainer Joe Santiago for the Pacquiao fight after falling out with uncle Evangelista Cotto. The fighter is currently 35-2 (28 KO) and is promoted by the same company that handles Pacquiao, Top Rank.