Kimbo took bigger slice out of West and South than East
Here's an old picture of James Thompson - who almost beat Kimbo Slice Saturday night - back when his ear looked much better than it does now.
I wrote an item about the MMA card earlier today and will have another one in the newspaper Tuesday, but here is some additional ratings info that I found mildly interesting:
The rating in 54 major markets peaked at 4.7 percent of homes from 11:30 to 11:45 p.m., when Slice and Thompson were doing battle.
Oklahoma City led the way with a huge 11.1 percentage, followed by nine other markets that are not in the Northeast or Upper Midwest: Nashville, New Orleans, Memphis, Greenville-Spartanburg-Asheville, Las Vegas, Tulsa, Miami, Los Angeles, St Louis.
The hockey game was over by then, so I'm not sure what this means. Discuss among yourselves.
Good night. Enjoy the 1996 Dodge National Circuit Finals rodeo at 11 p.m. on ESPN Classic.
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Comments (3)
Kimbo Slice was who they wanted people to watch and he is the only one of their men who has a name value. Obviously in the areas of the country where the hockey and the MMA were competing with each other they hurt each other. In the areas where MMA was on delayed tape and had no competition, like LA and Las Vegas it did well.
Since CBS didn't treat this program like an important sports program and showed it live in parts of the country and taped in the rest of the country, it is hard to say this gives it legitimacy as a sport because it had a decent share of the viewing audience. If it was shown live on the west coast like hockey was, the ratings would have declined a lot. By treating it this way, it was just another TV show like American Idol or Dancing With the Stars or WWE Raw that are "live on tape" on their networks west of the Rockies (and probably just as legitimate with their results.)
In the meantime this MMA group has to be delirious with joy and the more established ones can't possibly be. And, we will soon be seeing stories somewhere about how this outdrew hockey's Stanley Cup on TV and how badly that reflects on the sport of hockey. I want to see head-to-head ratings matchups.
I'm happy the show did well because I love MMA but this was a piss poor cheesy event that reminded me of the WWF. The past EliteXC events on Showtime were a lot less cheesy then this CBS version.
UFC became very successful when they took the cheese/freakshows out of events and made it a legit sporting event showcasing legit athletes.
I hope the next CBS EliteXC show is produced much better with a main event worthy of such a prominent prime time spot and not two freak shows fighting like garbage.
Also, the WEC show which aired live on Versus Sunday was unbelievably entertaining.
Sooo good. Neil do you know those ratings?