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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
Though the average viewership for Saturday's UFC on Fox 2 event was down from November's network television debut for the UFC, the main event bout between Rashad Evans and Phil Davis was still seen by the second most viewers for an MMA fight in the U.S. ever.
The full average of the two-hour broadcast was below the EliteXC debut in May of 2008 on CBS, but the main event bout for UFC on Fox 2 peaked higher than the EliteXC main event between Kimbo Slice and James Thompson.
According to veteran MMA reporter Loretta Hunt on Twitter, the Evans-Davis main event peaked with 6.613 million viewers at the 10:10-10:11 PM ET mark. The main event fight itself averaged just over 6.1 million viewers for its five rounds of action.
November's 64-second main event between Junior dos Santos and Cain Velasquez peaked at 8.8 million viewers live, with nearly ten million catching the fight when DVR numbers were taken into account.
Penick's Analysis: The peak was boosted because of the overrun into the 10PM ET hour, as that is local news time, and many probably tuned in, saw news wasn't on yet, and turned away. Still, with the average coming in over 6.1 million, some of them may have stuck around for the fight until news started up. Either way, this technically makes the main event fight the second most seen MMA fight in the U.S. ever behind dos Santos-Velasquez, and the UFC will hope most of their main events on Fox will get similar distinction above what EliteXC did on CBS.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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