UFC on Fox 1 made its debut on Saturday night and as the ratings reportedly reflect, it was a well observed affair. The event was said to pull in 5.7 million viewers of the key target 18-34 and 18-49 male demographic. And it won over the female demo with 1.7 million women viewers over 18. By all measures, it seems congratulations are in order. Yet, for the UFC to achieve any of this mainstream success, they were going to have to piss off a few die hard MMA fans.
As expected, several MMA fans voiced their complaints, having felt cheated to lose a televised Main Card in lieu of documentary style footage profiling Cain Velasquez and Junior dos Santos. Dana White told critics to “shut up” in a post fight presser, but further explained it was a necessary touch to give some back story on the Heavyweights, as a method to educate new viewers on the sport and the two men they were about to watch battle. As a pre-existing fan, I appreciated the insertion of biographical portions to the show. And maybe Dana’s right about needing to catch the rest of the mainstream world up to the sport. The reports indicate, the show pulled in record-breaking numbers for a televised MMA event. But, I wonder where the new fans came from. I can’t imagine we converted any avid American Idol or Glee fans. And I’m pretty sure we already own the Sons of Anarchy and Cops fans. Maybe it’s those tricky, on-the-fence House fans we attained.
The Heavyweight title fight lasted all of 1 minute and four seconds, and honestly it probably should have been stopped a few seconds earlier. But, I understand the pressure on Big John McCarthy to have to be really super sure the [former] Champ was unable to defend himself before he jumped in on the UFC’s only fight to air on their huge network debut. Fortunately, Velasquez looked virtually unscathed after the fight.
The biggest complaint before (and after) the Fox event was that the Fight of the Night, Clay Guida vs. Benson Henderson did not air on live television. I don’t care to join in the criticism. What for, at this point? But it did kind of suck to cram around our friend’s lap top for 15 minutes. A less obvious but still relevant complaint was that nobody got to see the return of Brittney Palmer. What the hell? She lives in LA. Why wasn’t she there? But we can’t really whine about not seeing her, when we weren’t able to see much of the ring girls, anyway with that short bout.
So in the weeks and months to come, we will hear about the huge success that was UFC on Fox 1, because of the necessary format changes original fight fans were forced to acclimate to. Let’s try to remember there were some positive changes too, like the production value, which was quite similar to Fox’s NFL coverage. Then of course, there was the change of the Heavyweight guard as dos Santos became the new Champion. And last, there was my favorite change of all…not having to pay for the pay-per-view! Hell, let Pepsi and Coke and Doritos pay for us to watch fights, instead! I’m looking forward to Anderson Silva vs. Chael Sonnen II. Can we get that on Fox, please?