Kimbo Slice one his first official UFC MMA match last Saturday night, but the ratings were less than his first appearance on "The Ultimate Fighter," when he wasn't yet officially UFC. Slice's fight with Roy Nelson more than a couple of months ago set records when it drew 5.3 million for SPIKE. But Saturday night's match where the YouTube wonder that is Slice outpointed Houston Alexander, drew only 3.671 million.
On the plus side, while 39th in overall viewing for the week "The Ultimate Fighter" was 13th with adults 18-49 (1.947), but ranked much higher with the 18-34 (1.783 million) where it was second for the week on ad-supported cable trailing only ESPN's "Monday Night Football."
If you're thinking, "Wait, that means less than 200K adults aged 35-49 watched the bout," you're right, but I guess the proper response to that is "so?" Slice will fight on, and get more shots at besting his previous Nielsen mark on Spike.
Still a solid number especially for a Saturday Night. Kimbo has been dominating up to this fight and if he puts some wins together he will draw the fans back plus with the UFC what he does with buyrates on PPV will matter more.
That fight was an embarrassment for the most part…at least on Alexander. What was up with all that hopping around?
The fight was lazy as I don’t heavyweights should take it to the ground.
That was a good rating though and the only way to see a Kimbo fight live will be on PPV after this.
The fight was held at a weird time (there were two fights after it), and of course it went against the Texas/Nebraska game which definitely shared a similar audience (I was flipping between both).
CBS promoted the holy out of Kimbo Slice, where UFC didn’t even have a big video package or anything prior to his bout. This is a good number for them and if he beats another chump UFC can justify giving him a main event slot on free TV, and that will get monster ratings.