Tuesday night’s second episode of The Ultimate Fighter reality show on FX did a 0.9 rating and 1.27 million viewers, an audience drop of 16 percent from week one.
The drop is similar to most seasons after the first week. It’s both well ahead of the Friday night numbers and also below what the show was doing on Wednesday nights on Spike. The lowest-rated season on Spike, season 13 with Brock Lesnar and Junior Dos Santos as coaches, averaged 1.38 million viewers.
Thursday’s show built to a fight with England’s Luke Barnatt, representing Team Sonnen, finishing wrestler Gilbert Smith with a flying knee in the second round.
It placed fifth in its time slot on cable in the 18-49 demographic, doing a 0.7. Its main sports competition was college basketball on ESPN, which did 1.71 million viewers head-to-head, but was slightly behind at an 0.6 in the most sought after demographic.
Week three pits Uriah Hall (7-2) of Team Sonnen, one of the season’s favorites, against Adam Cella (4-0). Hall is a kickboxer whose two career losses are to current UFC middleweight stars, Chris Weidman and Costa Philippou. Cella is undefeated with all four wins coming by first-round finish, the longest lasting 3:17.