Alvarez isn't mature enough to deal with a Cotto fighting at a measured pace and is already having problems making 154. His fight against Shane said a lot about him, Shane didn't seem to have any pop on his punches and most of the speed was gone, but Alvarez still took the punches from him and even got into a body shot contest of sorts with Shane. The amount of offense Shane was able to land on him Cotto would be able to get on him at a much measured pace and his shots would be a lot harder especially his body shots.

Now Cotto doesn't like hits to the body and Alvarez may find something there, but the fact that Shane had moderate success going to his body makes me cringe with what body shots from Cotto would do.

It depends on the middle rounds, against Mayweather Cotto seemed to tired during some of the mid rounds when Mayweather committed to his body with his jab which is why Cotto spend half a round being defensive and letting Floyd press him, I feel if Floyd had stayed to the body he probably would have stopped him, but for one reason or another he didn't press in that round or the next few and Cotto came back on strong till the last few rounds. Cotto could also have tired because of the combination of Floyd making him miss in addition to the body shots.

The thing is, Alvarez wouldn't give Cotto the time to regather himself like Floyd seemed to do by not pressing when he had him dead to rights. If Alvarez had Cotto tired and defensive in the middle rounds he'd be pressing and punishing him with more body shots and Cotto would be stopped late.

But honestly that's the only scenario I can see Alvarez beating him with. I can take much more from his performance against Mosley that tells me that Cotto probably beatsh him than I can take from Cotto's performance against Mayweather to say that Alvarez would beat him.