By Dan Ambrose: If you saw last night’s Miguel Cotto vs. Antonio Margarito II fight on HBO PPV, you might have noticed that the ringside doctor chose the exact worse time to step in and halt the fight due to Margarito’s right on swelling up.

Margarito was fighting very effectively even with the eye pretty well shut. Indeed, Margarito had his best round of the fight in the 9th round when he hurt Cotto briefly with a left hand to the head and was landing a lot of shots.

You could see that Margarito was wearing Cotto down and the last three rounds would have been interesting to see if Cotto could have taken his shots. But the ringside doctor pulled the plug on the fight at the start of the 10th round and thus giving Cotto a TKO win. That’s sad because you can’t have doctors halting fights when a fighter is still fighting incredibly well.

The doctor said afterwards that he was worried that Margarito couldn’t see punches coming and that’s why he wanted to halt the fight. But it didn’t matter, because Margarito was really taking the fight to Cotto and not just taking punishment. I think it was so wrong. But then again, the fight took place in New York, and this was a home fight for Cotto.

I’m not surprised that the doctor jumped in when he did, but it made it seem like Cotto was being saved more than Margarito was being protected. I think Margarito would have pulled out a victory in the next three rounds with his power shots. Of course, we’ll never know because of the stoppage.

I think it taints the fight and isn’t a good deal for all the boxing fans who paid $54.95 to watch the fight on pay per view, and all the fans that paid big money to see the fight live at Madison Square Garden. It was a terrible ending, and I think they need to change results where doctors halt the fight to no decisions instead of giving a fighter a victory due to an injury.

That just seems wrong, as does letting the fight go to the scorecards. You don’t really get the complete picture of what might have happened if the fight had gone the full 12, and it’s silly to give a TKO or decision victory on doctor stoppages. Seems really stupid and hopefully someday this rule will be changed.