Bellator 111 on Spike TV this past Friday night was watched by an average of 653,000 viewers.
That’s down 227,000 viewers from the season premiere a week earlier and falls back in line with the kind of numbers we saw from the promotion on the network last season.
No real surprise here – last week’s event was boosted by the presence of Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson in the main event with Muhammed ‘King Mo’ Lawal also fighting on the main card, while Friday’s show lacked that kind of star power.
Bantamweight champion Eduardo Dantas isn’t much of a draw at this stage, though notching up another nice win will help and his fight with Anthony Leone did peak at 793,000 viewers.
Meanwhile, this Friday’s welterweight tournament has taken a big hit with no less than three fighters pulling out due to injury.
Unfortunately that includes a few of the biggest names pegged for the tourney, including ‘Fight Master’ winner Joe ‘Diesel’ Riggs and ‘War Machine’ along with newcomer Mark Scanlon.
The promotion have scrambled to find replacements, bringing in Paul Bradley, Nathan Coy and Cristiano Souza to keep the tournament afloat, but they are not fighters who are going to set fans pulses racing.
That could have an effect on the ratings for the show, though a headlining featherweight title fight between rivals Daniel Straus and Pat Curran may still produce a healthy peak rating.
