UFC Fight Night Hidalgo main card pulls in 826,000 viewers

Up against the usual heavy fall competition of college football, Saturday’s UFC Fight Night rating held up better than expected, drawing 826,000 viewers for the main card and 637,000 for the prelims on FS 1.

Those numbers were down from the 863,000 and 662,000 that the August 2015 FS1 Fight Night show brought in.

Unlike fights where the main event goes the full five rounds giving the audience a chance to grow, Saturday’s main event ended in just 1:35 when Michael Johnson knocked out Dustin Poirier. The show went off the air 18 minutes early wheras most Fight Night shows typically run longer than scheduled, also helped by a short co-main event as well.

The Hildago, TX, event brought in nearly identical numbers to UFC’s September 2015 Fight Night event from Japan with 841,000 viewers, headlined by Josh Barnett’s five round victory over Roy Nelson.

In somewhat related news, Friday’s Bellator 161 show on Spike TV drew 686,000 viewers, down 5% from last month’s Bellator 160. That was up from their year to date average of 653,000 for their regular Friday night shows. The show was headlined by Cheick Kongo and also featured Joe Warren and Anastasia Yankova.