It's not the first time a Taylor was denied a victory in the final seconds of a big fight with less than 20 seconds left but this time it was the right decision. Meldrick Taylor lost a controversial fight to Juilo Cesar Chavez with two seconds left back in 1990 when Richard Steele decided to stop it. Taylor was ahead of Chavez, big on of two of the three scorecards.

A similar scenario unfolded on Saturday night when Jermain Taylor took a four point lead over Carl Froch into the 12th round on two of the three scorecards. But the score didn't tell the story as Taylor was fading badly to end the 11th. He got whacked with 1:58 left in the fight, stumbled around the ring for the next minute and then finally went down with 44 seconds left in the fight. Taylor tried to hold on, drifted to the ropes and then dropped his hands. Referee Michael Ortega stepped into to stop it with 14 seconds left.

Watch the Froch knockout (0:44 mark):

"My main concern is the safety of fighters at all times, regardless of time," Ortega told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. "I don't concentrate on time. Fourteen seconds, 10 seconds, it doesn't matter. The main thing is for the fighters to go home safe and sound to their loved ones. I knew it was close to the end of the round, but [Taylor] wasn't throwing anything back. I said 'Enough is enough' and hopefully he can come back another day."  

Taylor led the fight 106-102 on the scorecards of Nobuaki Uratani and Omar Minton. Even with a 10-8 in the 12th round, Froch would've come up short of closing the gap. With that, Taylor still wouldn't say he was screwed:

"I don't know if he made the right decision or not, but he is the referee and he thought he should stop it and he stopped it," Taylor said. "I take my hat off to the referee.

Taylor (28-3-1, 17 KOs) said he definitely wants a rematch against Froch (25-0, 20 KOs). With all the difficulty the elite fighters have making fights against top notch competition in this weight range, why wouldn't these guy fight again? It's an easy sell.