Manny Pacquiao: Pac-Man Completely Robbed by Inept Judges

A few minutes after 9 p.m. local time, Manny Pacquiao and Timothy Bradley threw the first punches of their welterweight title fight in Las Vegas. Just over one hour later, the sport of boxing officially lost its legitimacy.

In a move that reeks of corruption or stupidity or both, Bradley was inexplicably awarded a split-decision victory over Pacquiao Saturday night.

Despite dominating at least two-thirds of the fight, Pacquiao got robbed by the ringside judges, who scored the bout 115-113, 113-115, 115-113 in favor of Bradley.

In all honesty, I'm at a loss for words over this ridiculous outcome.

Scoring a boxing match is no easy task, and the pressure on ringside judges is immense. But to whiff on a decision this badly, well, it simply defies human logic.

Pacquiao was the better fighter, the stronger fighter, the more efficient fighter. He landed a higher percentage of his punches (via ESPN), a higher percentage of his power punches and he staggered Bradley throughout with his massive straight left hand.

The early rounds were owned by Pacquiao, who basically laughed at the notion that Bradley could contend with him. He rocked the undefeated challenger on multiple occasions, and smiled as he did so.

Bradley gave a valiant effort, but to any sane, rational, objective observer, this was a dominant victory by Pacquiao.

That is, until the judges interjected.

I'm not sure if this is some backlash for Pacquiao's controversial decision over Juan Manuel Marquez (via Yahoo! Sports), or simply an act of insanity.

Regardless of the motive, Saturday, June 9, 2012 will go down as the day that professional boxing became a joke. I hope those judges are happy.