Debut episode of TUF 10 highest rated original show in Spike history
After seeing the ratings slowly slide in the most successful mixed martial arts program on television, The Ultimate Fighter has come back with a vengeance in it’s tenth season, blasting the previous record for the highest rated original program in Spike TV history out of the water.
The highest rated episode in Ultimate Fighter captured 4.1 million viewers, besting the previous TUF high of 2.8 million viewers during the season three finale in 2006.
The news of the dramatically increased ratings for The Ultimate Fighter is great news, not only for Spike TV and the UFC, but for the sport as a whole.
Cory Brady is the managing editor of FiveOuncesOfPain.com, along with being a regular feature writer with Ultimate MMA Magazine. You can follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/corybrady
| All posts by Cory Brady
Wow this is not a shocker of course because of the drawing power of kimbo and Rampage, but damn that is a huge increase. I wonder if itll keep growing week to week or stay the same.
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If Kimbo doesn’t lose his first fight ratings will surely climb.
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The ratings will slowly slide until Kimbo fights. That will probably bring back the Kimbo nut huggers and have ratings comparable to the debut episode. whether Kimbo wins or not enough of his fan base may hang around to make the finale have higher ratings tan Griffin/Bonner. Good Ratings=Good for MMA!
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True. I just had a conversation with a friend of mine today.
He started off with how many guys you think Kimbo is gonna smash. I retorted he might win once. He was befuddled. He started to explain that since Kimbo had started fighting he has trained a whole lot of wrestling so it would be harder for people to take him down, and he would easily knock all of them out on the feet. I tried to explain that he actually doesnt hit that hard, spouting his inability to KO James Thompson who has been very succeptible of the KO in his tenure. He immediately defended it as him having an off nite. I started to explain a few other points, but then just gave up and said well just see what happens.
Im guessing there are a lot of casuals out there that are a lot like my friend.
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this season already rawks! awesome 1st episode. war Simms and Kimbo, booooo Schlub and lil’ Country!
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oh, and LOL @ anyone thinking Kimbo will win more than 1 fight….. he will probably get beat in his 1st. still pulling for him though….
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it will only get better. do you think the producers (dana) would talk behind closed doors to either rampage or evans about holding off on kimbo until later on in the weeks????
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The episode Kimbo actually fights in is going to be ratings through the roof. If these fighters are truthful the first time Rashad’s team picks the fight Kimbo will get called out.
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only if Kimbo was a LEGIT mma fighter
then we will have tons of new mma fighters
but if UFC treats Kimbo good (i do not mean like Elite Xc did by giving him cans) then probably it can work
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A few things stood out to me, and the first was Rashad picking first fighter instead of first 2 fights. Rashad knew that Rampage was taking Kimbo first, and he knew he would get his 2 boys. This told me that they didn’t want Kimbo fighting first, because we all know everyone wants to fight Kimbo and Rashad would have to have picked anyone on his team against Kimbo. Rashads team won so he gets to pick the third fight no matter what happens next week. If they are keeping Kimbo around for ratings (which I think they are) we will know then.
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talent wise, this season wont top season 5
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Dana knows math. Rampage plus Kimbo = rating$. And we’ll see how Kimbo does. He has a puncher’s chance, and most of the competitors are comparatively inexperienced–the types of fighters who are most likely to get caught with a punch out of nowhere.
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Yea the talent pool seems to be a little thinner this season, however, star power is through the roof. Dana had a royal flush up his pocket for this season…..He brings in the MMA fans with Roy Nelson, theres a tonne of potential for fottball fans to check out this season as well, and the icing on the cake is that Kimbo brings in everyone else, from people who want to see him get knocked out to people who think he can win the whole show.
Rampage could have his own show on Spike too, he brings a fun aspect to the show with his hillarious comments. How hard did you laugh when he picked the camera guy….common that was TUF gold.
I bet they out-do the ratings of the premier though when Kimbo fights. You know they wont hide which episode he fights in, Dana wants the whole world to know when Kimbo is gonna be entering the Octagon. It will be an epic show.
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Mac agree I agree with ya on most of the fronts you wrote about, except I think the talent level while not on the level of season 1-5 is still a lot better than it has been the last 4 seasons.
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with mac and edub both. was it just me or did we see little to almost nothing of the first night in the house and alot of Rampage and Evans zinging each other??? would love to see how many guys a plotting aginst Kimbo and who will befriedn him and who are all the loss canons on the show. I think we will see more of the gym stuff then the house stuff.
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Kimbo schmimbo, Nelson’s gonna win this.
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