I remember saying the same thing years ago but still wasn't definitive on whether he would beat cotto at the time. I just said the fight would look similar. That guy is very close to cotto stylistically. Styles are styles but then you have to look at attributes which cotto had more of than Bruseles. Cotto is physically stronger, more powerful and techically sharper even though both posses the same style. Cotto was an upgrade to bruseles. It wasn't until the Cotto Judah fight that I started to feel that Floyd would beat Cotto comfortably.
Cotto was in attendance for the Bruceless fight. And rather then avenging his friend and sparring partner. He said he wasn't ready for the fight. Cotto attended the Gatti fight and said he wasn't ready after that fight either. This was before Mayweather and Arum were beefing when the fight could have been made way easier. Cotto held it up because he didn't want to get his ass kicked so early in his career.
Funny thing is Cotto made sure not to say anything about fighting floyd or floyd in general but it's looked at as floyd ducking him because floyd didn't reach out. Floyd said back when they were at 140 that no one handed fighter will beat him when talking about Cotto. Cotto never said anything about Floyd. But still it's a widespread belief that floyd ducked cotto.
cotto also never mentioned margarito, pacquiao, judah or mosley. only now he's started calling out names such as martinez floyd and pacquiao.