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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
UFC 122 may not have been a great event for the UFC overall, but the event outperformed last month's UFC 120 event in the ratings for Spike TV.
UFC 120 last month brought 1.9 million viewers for the card from London, headlined by the middleweight bout between Michael Bisping and Yoshihiro Akiyama. That card aired in an earlier timeslot against tough competition from Major League Baseball and college football, and saw a one million viewer drop from the last major tape delayed event on Spike in UFC 105.
Saturday's UFC 122 broadcast was up against the Manny Pacquiao vs. Antonio Margarito boxing bout on pay-per-view and college football as well, but saw an increase of 300,000 viewers for the Spike TV broadcast, bringing in 2.2 million on average.
The show drew a 2.16 in the M18-34 demographic, as well as a 1.4 household rating.
Penick's Analysis: It was still down from a lot of previous numbered UFC events on Spike TV, but it still did a lot better than I think was expected from the card, which was considered to be the weakest lineup for a numbered event in a very long time. 120 had tougher competition from other sports, as there probably wasn't a ton of crossover for the boxing pay-per-view, at least not as much as there was with the World Series and the Ohio State-Wisconsin college football game last month. So in some ways, the numbers make sense, but it doesn't make it any less surprising that this card did as well as it did with how poor the card was in and of itself.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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