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By Matt Pelkey, MMATorch columnist
MMAJunkie.com has confirmed that WEC 47 this past Saturday did a 0.46 household rating for a total of 373,000 viewers.
Trending data has UFC 110, headlined by a heavyweight bout between Cain Velasquez and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, somewhere between 215,000 and 240,000 pay-per-view buys.
Both numbers are a drastic drop compared to recent numbers. The WEC event was down 42% from WEC 46, which drew 620,000, but also featured their proven #1 ratings draw in Urijah Faber. It was actually their second lowest rating (WEC 45 drew only 330,000 viewers in December; a card headlined by a non-title fight between Donald Cerrone and Ed Ratcliff) since WEC 34, headlined by the first meeting between Faber and Jens Pulver, set a promotional viewership best with 1.54 million.
UFC 110 can claim it was hurt by being a foreign show, which traditionally do lower pay-per-view numbers due to the fact that they're shown on tape delay at 10p.m. EST with the results already available online, but this show was shown live from Australia in their usual time slot. The 215,000-240,000 buys is significantly lower than the numbers for UFC 108, which is also being considered a huge disappointment despite a reported 300,000 buys. The average UFC pay-per-view offering in 2009 did 620,000.
Pelkey's Analysis: For now, the UFC can point to the rash of injuries that plagued recent cards for the stunted momentum from last summer. However, with a series of loaded cards coming up in the next several months, the numbers need to start trending dramatically upwards or it'll be time to worry. With two title fights and the return of GSP, if UFC 111 does anything less than 650,000 it has to be considered a colossal disappointment.
As for WEC, there's really no rhyme or reason for their numbers. Well, expect they're always better when Faber is on the card. They can still point to the VS./DirecTV war as a reason the numbers are down recently, but in reality its probably because they don't do enough to promote the fantastic product they put out. That needs to change soon, or WEC 48 will be their first and last pay-per-view event.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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