Saturday night’s Strikeforce: Rousey Vs Kaufman event drew an average of 529,000 viewers on the Showtime channel.
That’s the best ratings for Strikeforce so far this year, peaking with 676,000 viewers during the main event which saw Ronda Rousey continue her remarkable run of first round ambar submission victories, tapping out former champion Sarah Kaufman in under a minute.
Saturday’s show pulled in 57,000 viewers more than Rousey’s last headline appearance against Miesha Tate back in March.
That’s interesting as there was arguably more interest in that match-up compared to Saturday’s given the rivalry between those two fighters. However, Rousey’s star has continued to rise since then – appearing on the front cover of ESPN’s ‘The Body Issue’, making appearances on the likes of TMZ and Conan O’Brian as well as being the focus of a two-part Showtime ‘All Access’ special.
Over the past couple of years only Fedor Emelianenko and Alistair Overeem have been able to draw bigger ratings for Strikeforce than Rousey, and with neither of those two remaining in the organization it certainly seems as if she is now the promotion’s number one draw.
The catch for Strikeforce now is that there aren’t a lot of ladies left who can legitimately challenge Rousey and that could hurt her ratings in the future.
If a fight with Cris ‘Cyborg’ Santos could be arranged then that would surely be the biggest yet, but there’s a lot of arguing between the two sides at the moment over what weight limit the fight would take place, not to mention the fact that the Brazilian is still out of action due to a steroid suspension until 2013.
Meanwhile, a rematch with Miesha Tate is a possibility at some stage, but she doesn’t feel she’s earned it yet, so perhaps the best solution for the time being would be to bring back former champ Marloes Coenen.
