Miguel Cotto retained his WBA junior middleweight title, easily stopping challenger Antonio Margarito who was unable to continue because of a badly swollen right eye. The 31-year-old Puerto Rican champ Cotto improved to 37-2-0 with a dominating TKO victory at a sold-out Madison Square Garden on Saturday as he avenged a controversial loss to Margarito three years ago.

Margarito took a pounding from Cotto and fought the last few rounds with his right eye shut, the result of a barrage of strategically aimed left hooks from Cotto. With Margarito's surgically-repaired eye getting worse each round, ring doctor Anthony Curreri stepped in to halt the fight in between the ninth and 10th rounds, giving Cotto the TKO win.

"It came to the point where there was no vision at all from the eye," Curreri said. "I think it would have been dangerous for him to go out there without any visual field. He did go quite a bit with the eye impaired."

Margarito was livid with the stoppage and felt he was starting to get Cotto going.

"I felt fine. I only needed two more rounds to win. I told them how many numbers I had up. I knew from now on they were out to protect him because I was building momentum. I wasn't hurt. He never hurt me. He hits like a girl," Margarito said.