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History · 2015 · UFC 189: Mendes vs McGregor · Cathal Pendred vs John Howard
From the tape · 11 Jul 2015

Cathal Pendred vs John Howard

UFC 189: Mendes vs McGregor · Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
Result

John Howard beat Cathal Pendred

Method
Decision - Split
Round
3 of 3
Clock
5:00
WelterweightMain cardReferee · John McCarthy

We published no prediction for this bout. Everything on this page is the official record and the tape it was fought on — the result, the round-by-round counts, the judges’ cards where they exist and the sportsbook line where one was published. Our graded calls start in 2026 and live on the public record.

CP
Red corner CathalPendred“The Punisher”SBG Ireland · Dublin, Leinster
VSOn the tape
JH
Blue corner JohnHoward“Doomsday”Wai Kru MMA · Boston, Massachusetts
Welterweight3 rounds11 Jul 2015
The story going in
  • Comes in on a 4-fight win streak.
  • Has dropped 3 straight in the UFC.
  • Carries 30 points more takedown defence than Howard.
  • Has finished 2 of 6 UFC wins.
17-4-1
Record
24-13
−5 yr27
Age
32
+6″6' 1"
Height
5' 7"
+3″75″
Reach
72″
Orthodox
Stance
Orthodox
4
UFC bouts
+812
1/425% of wins
Finishes
+8%2/633% of wins
SBG Ireland
Gym
Wai Kru MMA
Dublin, Leinster
From
Boston, Massachusetts
Vitals, record, nickname and camp come from the public UFC fighter register and are current, not a snapshot of fight night. UFC bouts, finish rate and every storyline line are counted off the official UFC fight record. A tick marks the side holding the raw edge in that row — longer reach, taller, younger, more bouts, a higher finish rate. It is a fact about the tape, not a prediction, and rows with no clean comparison (record, stance, gym, hometown) carry no tick at all. Any row we cannot fill on both sides is left out rather than half-drawn. Streaks, bout counts and finish rates are as they stood going into this fight — this bout and everything after it is excluded from the count.

Round by round

Every round the fight went, shaded by where the significant strikes actually landed — the takedowns, control time and knockdowns beside them, and how the three judges scored that round.

UFCStats · per round

3 rounds of tape

Round 15:00 of action
Cathal Pendred17 sig landed
HEAD24%4 of 15BODY41%7 of 11LEGS35%6 of 7
John Howard14 sig landed
HEAD57%8 of 16BODY14%2 of 2LEGS29%4 of 4
17 of 33
Sig.
strikes
14 of 22
0 of 0
Take-
downs
0 of 0
0:00
Control
1:04
0
Sub
attempts
0
Distance 9Clinch 8Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 10Clinch 4Ground 0
Judges · this round · Pendred firstAdalaide Byrd10–9Marcos Rosales9–10Tony Weeks10–9
Round 25:00 of action
Cathal Pendred15 sig landed
HEAD27%4 of 14BODY47%7 of 8LEGS27%4 of 4
John Howard16 sig landed
HEAD88%14 of 27BODY6%1 of 3LEGS6%1 of 2
15 of 26
Sig.
strikes
16 of 32
0 of 0
Take-
downs
0 of 0
0:12
Control
0:09
0
Sub
attempts
0
Distance 8Clinch 7Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 9Clinch 7Ground 0
Judges · this round · Pendred firstAdalaide Byrd9–10Marcos Rosales9–10Tony Weeks9–10
Round 35:00 of action1 sub attemptEnded 5:00
Cathal Pendred13 sig landed
HEAD23%3 of 15BODY46%6 of 7LEGS31%4 of 6
John Howard18 sig landed
HEAD72%13 of 28BODY11%2 of 3LEGS17%3 of 3
13 of 28
Sig.
strikes
18 of 34
0 of 2
Take-
downs
0 of 1
0:32
Control
0:23
1
Sub
attempts
0
Distance 7Clinch 6Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 12Clinch 5Ground 1
Judges · this round · Pendred firstAdalaide Byrd9–10Marcos Rosales10–9Tony Weeks10–9

Significant strikes, takedowns, control time, knockdowns and submission attempts exactly as UFCStats recorded them for this bout, round by round. Zone percentages are that round’s landed head, body and leg counts over their own total — raw arithmetic, nothing modelled or smoothed. A round in which a fighter landed nothing shades empty and reads zero; it is never filled in from the round before.

The cards, totalled

The judges’ final totals, the media’s cards beside them, and how these judges usually score. Their round-by-round 10–9s are with the rounds above.

Official card

Split Decision

Referee · John McCarthy
Cathal PendredJohn Howard
Official totals — Cathal Pendred first
JudgeTotal
Adalaide Byrd2.0 avg spread · 45% wide28–29
Marcos Rosales2.2 avg spread · 51% wide28–29
Tony Weeks2.1 avg spread · 49% wide29–28

Each judge’s round-by-round scores sit with the round they belong to, in the round-by-round section above — switch a round there and the three cards for it change with the stats.

Media cards — 11 scored, Cathal Pendred first · unofficial

Cage Pages.com27–30
Tim Burke BloodyElbow.com27–30
MM ABrasil.com.br27–30
Jason Floyd TheMMAReport.com27–30
Hunter Homistek BleacherReport.com27–30
MM AJunkie.com27–30
Jordan Breen Sherdog.com27–30
Chris Nelson Sherdog.com27–30
Cory Braiterman MMAMania.com27–30
Shaun Al- Shatti MMAFighting.com28–30
Fergus O' Farrell Setanta28–29

Fan vote · unofficial

30-27 Howard · 69%29-28 Howard · 14%29-28 Pendred · 9%30-28 Howard · 6%30-27 Pendred · 3%

35 fan cards submitted to MMA Decisions.

Official cards come from the UFCStats fight record and MMA Decisions. Media cards and the fan vote are MMA Decisions’ own collection and are not official. Judge tendency figures are that judge’s whole recorded history, not this bout — they are context for how a card was scored, never a claim that it was scored wrongly.

Takedowns

Takedowns

The level change — head to head

Career UFC takedown rates. Red corner left, blue corner right.

Cathal Pendred

2.46takedowns / 15 min
2.46 / 15m
TAKEDOWNS
2.70 / 15m
10.70 / 15m
ATTEMPTS
5.51 / 15m
23%
ACCURACY
49%
0.40 / 15m
SUB ATT
0.40 / 15m

John Howard

2.70takedowns / 15 min

Career UFC takedown rates exactly as UFCStats publishes them: takedowns landed per 15 minutes, completion rate, submission attempts per 15 minutes, and the share of takedowns tried on them that they stuffed. Attempts per 15 is the one derived figure — landed ÷ completion rate — and it is omitted wherever either input is missing. UFCStats writes 0% where no attempt was recorded at all, so a percentage of exactly zero reads “n/a” here rather than as a measured rate. “Field” is the average fighter in that weight class, or across every division where a class is too small to average. Rate bars run to the population’s 95th percentile (4.97 takedowns / 15m); a fighter above it pins the bar. Percentages are drawn on their own axis.

Ranked in Welterweight

The market story

Where the price started and where it finished — the sportsbook consensus, with the vig removed. We captured no price series for this bout, so there is no chart to draw.

Cathal Pendred↓ −7.4pp
open 62.1%close 54.7%
John Howard↑ +7.4pp
open 37.9%close 45.3%
0%50%100%
OpenClosing consensus (BFO, vig removed)

Cathal Pendred opened at 62.1% and closed at 54.7% (−7.4pp), with John Howard moving the other way by the same amount — the two are one de-vigged pair, so they always sum to 100%. There is no line between those two points because nobody recorded one: we hold the open and the close for this bout, not the days in between.

Show the numbers
CornerOpen (US)Close (US)Open %Close %Move
Cathal Pendred-190-13262.1%54.7%−7.4pp
John Howard15011237.9%45.3%+7.4pp
Opening and closing moneylines from BestFightOdds (data/refs/bfo_fighter_moneylines.csv), one row per fighter per bout, de-vigged pairwise so the two corners sum to 100% · scraped 2026-06-10. No price series was captured for this bout, so no line is drawn between the two points.
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