Cotto may never be the same

[boozeboxer]

Not sure if you can call a fight a gift if the referee asks the fighter "Are you ok?" only to have him blank stare at the referee with a disfigured face and no answer. The rules of boxing are clear in that situation.
Will Cotto be the same? Not sure about that if he ends up getting another beating at the rematch or even if he gets rocked, bloody face / cuts, etc. Against Jennings just like Cotto has already when facing past journeymen.
He has to tottaly knock out Jennings to look like he's back in track. I wouldn't get all excited for this fight as much as I didn't when he faced Gomez though.

there was like 2 seconds left when the fight was stopped. Its pretty hard not to to say it was a gift, and for the most part taylor was responsive to steele's instructions.

If the rules say that if there are a few seconds left in the last round then he can continue even if his face is disfigured and he doesn't answer to the referee then I would also agree that the stopage was wrong. But no, rules state that if the boxer can't answer and doesn't seem like he can continue then the fight is stopped REGARDLESS of time. A fighter that can continue after a knock down normally gets up and walks to the referee with firm steps and boxing stance showing he can continue and even answer VOCALLY "Yes, I am fine" or whatever. Taylor did NONE of those.

Taylor didn't want to continue.

[CGM]

To me it is obvious the ref made a very quick decision in Taylor Chavez, without due consideration. It took him like one second to make up his mind after asking are you OK? Don't forget this is Richard Steele, who has a rep for premature stoppages.

Steele knows how much time is left, you can be sure of that. Now I ain't gonna say that Steele is in someone's pocket, but you can be sure that the powers that be want the big unbeaten streak to continue, and are happy with the decision.