Squash … dead. Disassemble … dead. No disassemble!
Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) recently tied a ribbon around its UFC 240: “Holloway vs. Edgar” pay-per-view (PPV) event, which took place last Sat. night (July 27, 2019) inside Rogers Arena in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
Before the ESPN+-only fight card went down, the promotion televised four mixed martial arts (MMA) preliminary bouts on ESPN, featuring such household names as Viviane Araujo, Hakeem Dawodu, and Seungwoo Choi, among others.
Not surprisingly, the UFC 240 “Prelims” ratings were the lowest of the year at just 722,000 and the worst since UFC 230 pulled an anemic 635,000 last November on FOX Sports 1. That’s according to television guru Jed Goodman.
By comparison, BattleBots on Discovery Channel returned 872,000 viewers the night before, which tells me the coveted male demographic was more interested in watching souped-up Roombas than skilled MMA fighters, at least in terms of caged combat.
Honestly, I don’t quite get the appeal of BattleBots.
Granted, a nickname like “Crippling Depression” certainly sounds cool, but the actual unit looks like someone who knows nothing about machinery (or yard care) tried to build a lawnmower and eventually ran out of parts.
Then again, I’m still salty about the rapid rise and equally rapid fall of MegaBots.
Sigh.