Let’s all be honest with ourselves here, we don’t come to expect much of anything from Bellator. It isn’t that Bellator has a really bad product or anything, we just know not to expect anything great from them. They became the #2 MMA promotion in North America by default when the UFC bought out Strikeforce and absorbed them into the UFC, but it was a rather hollow victory for Bellator.
I mean, this weekend was supposed to be their big PPV debut, but instead, it was just another show on Spike TV with Chandler/Alvarez II, but as I argued earlier this week, I think this could be the best possible thing for Bellator, as more eyes would be on their best fight. Guess what? That exact thing happened, as Bellator pulled in what is monster ratings for MMA on cable television.
Bellator’s Chandler vs Alvarez event on Spike TV on Saturday drew 1.1M viewers and peaked with 1.4M. #mma #bellator #spiketv
— MMA Supremacy (@MMASupremacy) November 5, 2013
It should be noted that the peak number came before the main event and that they expect some dropoff from the fact that it went over the allotted time slot and many people might not of DVR’d the extra runoff. It’s still a good number, better than Bellator has seen on Spike TV and better than the UFC has seen on Fox Sports 1 since the debut.