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Feb 2, 2010 - 8:09:33 PM

By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

Strikeforce drew their second highest rating on Showtime for their Strikeforce: Miami event on Saturday night, which featured Herschel Walker's MMA debut along with two Title fights.

Bringing in 517,000 viewers, the event trailed only the Gina Carano vs. Cris Cyborg headlined event on Showtime from August, which brought in 576,000 viewers. That number represented a nearly 52% increase in viewership from December's event which featured Cung Le vs. Scott Smith in the main event.

The numbers were especially impressive given the UFC's counter-programming effort on Spike TV. The UFC ran the first replay of December's UFC 107 pay-per-view event and drew an excellent 2.2 million viewers for the broadcast during the same timeslot. Of course, Spike is available in 98.6 million homes while Showtime's subscriber base is around 12 million.

Penick's Analysis: Both organizations put up great numbers on Saturday night, and it's clear that the Herschel Walker move worked out for Strikeforce at least in the short term for bringing in viewers for this show. Whether the curious sports fans tuning in for the "freakshow" aspect of a 47 year old former pro athlete making a debut in a combat sport will tune in for future shows remains in question.

They've got to build their own stars to get to these types of numbers for their events and beyond on Showtime, and thus far their biggest events have come with a women's fight they didn't promote very well that was built up by another organization and then with essentially an amateur fight with a big named athlete from another sport.

They've made wonderful strides in 2009, but they do need to find their own footing with their fighters moving forward to fulfill the lofty expectations they're putting on themselves. This was a good showing, but they've really got to prove that they can pull these numbers without Herschel Walker and without Gina Carano, because they haven't done it yet.

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