UFN 59's Pendred vs. Spencer judges' decision was really, really, really bad

Cathal Pendred and Sean Spencer

The judges’ decision for Sunday’s UFC Fight Night 59 bout between Cathal Pendred and Sean Spencer – to put it bluntly – sucked.

When Pendred (16-2-1 MMA, 3-0 UFC) was inexplicably declared the decision winner over Spencer (12-4 MMA, 3-3 UFC) – unanimously, no less – after three rounds, the state of MMA judging arguably hit a new low. And that’s saying something in a sport plagued by terrible scorecards.

In the final FOX Sports 1-televised preliminary-card bout at Boston’s TD Garden, Spencer appeared on his way to a clear-cut unanimous-decision victory. Sure, the stats (via FightMetric) didn’t exactly scream upset, but anyone watching the event – the actual judges, not included – could see Spencer clearly won the fight.

However, the cageside officials – David Ginsberg, Doug Crosby and Eric Colon – disagreed and awarded the Boston-born and Dublin-based Pendred the victory via baffling 29-28, 30-27 and 30-27 scores.

The immediate social-media reaction was harsh (even former WWE star and UFC newcomer Phil “CM Punk” Brooks got in on it), but justifiably so.

According to MMADecisions.com, which was knocked offline after the event due to a surge of traffic, it was clearly one of the worst decision’s in MMA history. Just how bad? Consider this:

• All 15 media outlets tracked by MMADecisions.com scored the fight for Spencer
• Of those 15 media outlets, 11 scored it a shutout, 30-27, for Spencer (the other four scored it 29-28 for him)
• Among the fan scoring, 92.3 percent scored it for Spencer, with 67.7% percent scoring it 30-27 (as of early Monday evening)

Even UFC President Dana White and Joe Rogan kicked off Saturday’s main-card broadcast by acknowledging the terrible call in the Pendred-Spencer fight.

Our on-site reporter, Matt Erickson, shared a similar sentiment (via Twitter):

The decision was bad enough that it drew instant comparisons to Diego Sanchez’s controversial win over Ross Pearson in 2014. As MMAjunkie’s Ben Fowlkes wrote at the time, “This wasn’t just a bad decision; it was an absurd one. It’s the kind of thing that makes you a little bit disgusted with the sport. It makes you wish we could agree to disregard judges’ calls with a two-thirds majority vote, presidential veto override-style.”

If only that were really an option.

For complete coverage of UFC Fight Night 59, check out the UFC Events section of the site.