Ultimate Fighting Championship president Dana White was hoping to break television records this past Saturday night with the UFC on FOX: Velasquez vs. Dos Santos event.
Unfortunately for him, that failed to happen as TVbytheNumbers.com is reporting that the early viewer numbers for the California event show a draw of 4.64 million viewers to the promotions first show on FOX.
Update: A FOX Press Release on Sunday readjusted those numbers to 5.7 million for the one-hour program, claiming that it was “also the highest-rated and most-watched professional fight of any kind on a broadcast network for OSCAR DE LA HOYA’S FIGHT NIGHT on FOX. (4.3/6, 5.9 million viewers) in 1998.”
The television record, which White hoped to beat, was 6.5 million for the 2008 CBS-televised EliteXC: Primetime event which was headlined by a bout between Kevin ‘Kimbo Slice’ Ferguson and James Thompson.
Last nights Nov. 12 event, which took place at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California, featured just one fight on the card, a UFC heavyweight title match between Cain Velasquez and Junior dos Santos.
Dos Santos would take just 64-seconds to finish the fight, landing a big right hand to his opponents head before finishing Velasquez on the ground to take the UFC belt from the formerly undefeated champ.