Cotto vs Trout: Austin Trout not intimidated by 'little' Miguel Cotto

Recent photos from the Miguel Cotto-Austin Trout press conferences in New York and Puerto Rico made very clear that Trout, a 5'10" legitimate junior middleweight, is simply a bigger man than former junior welterweight and welterweight titlist Cotto, and he tells RingTV.com that he feels like he'll be able to use his size to his advantage when they meet on December 1 at Madison Square Garden:

"I am a lot bigger, physically, than him. That was the first time I had been right next to him. I knew pretty much about his dimensions. But seeing it up close, it was funny. But it was cool. We kind of looked at him and we agreed that if we need to, we can definitely push this little dude around."

... "He looked me right in the eyes, and a lot of people don't do that for as long as we were in the stare down. I didn't expect fear. But I thought that it was funny that he really had to look up a lot to do the stare down. I'm 5-foot-10, and I would say that he's about 5-8 or 5-7."

Trout also had this to say about Cotto's current conditioning:

"We had to do the Showtime promo, and whatnot, and we had to do it with your shirts off last Tuesday. I'm not saying that he was fat, or anything, but he did have a little bit of a belly on him."

Cotto, who is listed at 5'7" and was fairly small height- and reach-wise even at welterweight, has been able to use his great skill to succeed at 154 pounds, where he's beaten Antonio Margarito, Ricardo Mayorga, and Yuri Foreman, and lost to Floyd Mayweather. Margarito and Mayorga were at their best at 147 pounds, too, while Mayweather, of course, has traveled in weight from 130 pounds at the start of his career. Foreman, meanwhile, was simply not physical at all, and also suffered a bad knee injury in his fight with Cotto.

This is one of the big things that makes Trout (25-0, 14 KO) a live dog on December 1. If he can use his size, and you add in the fact that he can box and can move well, then Cotto (37-3, 30 KO) could very well have a long night in the ring awaiting him.

Of course, boxing has a long history of some "little dudes" putting the hurt on bigger foes for a variety of reasons, and we've seen smaller guys in fights turn into the bully many times. The bottom line is, Trout has to be prepared for someone better than he's ever fought, and Cotto has to be prepared for what might really be the first true, natural 154-pound fighter he's faced.