Saturday night’s The Ultimate Fighting Championship spiked in the ratings for Spike TV.
The live UFC Fight Night card, from The Pearl at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas, averaged 3.1 million total viewers during its 9 p.m. to midnight run on July 19, according to Nielsen Media Research data.
The card, showcasing Anderson “Spider” Silva, arguably the world's top pound-for-pound combat fighter, ranked fourth among the 25 live UFC events Spike has aired to date, said network officials. The show last Sept. 8, highlighted by "Rampage Jackson" topped the charts with some 5.9 million viewers.
This past Saturday night, the telecast peaked with some 3.8 million viewers at 11:30 p.m., when Silva put a web of punches together that put James “The Sandman” Irvin to sleep during a first round KO. At that point, the fight delivered a 4.9 rating among men 25 to 34 and a 4.1 mark among men 18 to 34.
Overall, Spike was tops in all of TV during the aforementioned three-block with men 18 to 34 (a 3.2 rating and 903,000 of those watchers), men 18 to 49 (2.8 and 1.55 million), men 25 to 34 (622,000) and persons 18 to 34 (1.33 million).
Spike will showcase three more live UFC cards from Dana White's group this year, including a Sept. 17 card from Omaha that will lead into its eight season of reality competition series, The Ultimate Fighter.
