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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
Ben Henderson and Donald Cerrone had one of the best fights of the year last Saturday at WEC 43, and the event itself brought in 419,000 viewers to the Versus network, according to a report at MMAJunkie.com.
While not near some of the larger ratings that the WEC has received on Versus, the main reason for the disparity was Versus being dropped by DirecTV.
A distribution squabble took Versus off of DirecTV on August 31st and significantly cut the number of homes reached by the network, which also houses NHL broadcasts and college football games.
Due to that, and the fact that none of the WEC's main marketable star fighters were a part of this card, the event brought in 37% less viewers than August's WEC 42 card.
Penick's Analysis: Despite being on the lower end for a WEC event, considering the factors involved this is still a relatively successful number. Henderson and Cerrone weren't going to draw the kind of interest that Urijah Faber and Miguel Torres do, they just aren't at this point. The WEC will be looking for a big number with the next event, however, with Mike Brown sandwiched between two major UFC events. With all of that hype and being in the middle of the week I'd expect the Brown-Aldo fight to nearly double this rating without DirecTV on board. If they can get a deal with DirecTV in place by then, it will probably get near the million viewer mark.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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