This past weekend’s UFC Fight Night 85 event in Brisbane, Australia was watched by an average of 1,149,000 viewers on FOX Sports 1.
That’s a solid number for a show that didn’t have a lot of pre-fight hype going into it, and is up 166,000 viewers from the recent UFC Fight Night 83: Cerrone Vs Oliveira show – though it’s worth noting that it took place on a Sunday night spot on the channel.
Overall the show was the ninth most watched ‘Fight Night’ card in FOX Sports 1 history, while the prelims, headlined by Alan Jouban Vs Brendan O’ Reilly also aired to a respectable 766,000 viewers.
Those who tuned in were treated to an enjoyable climax to the event, with Neil Magny’s thrilling ‘Fight of The Night’ comeback victory against Hector Lombard being followed by the latest addition to Mark Hunt’s growing collection of highlight-reel walk-off knockout victories against Frank Mir.
As it turned out the peak rating for the show actually occurred during the back and forth co-main event, with the final moments of the Magny Vs Lombard scrap delivering 1,294,000 viewers.
The ‘Fight Night’ show had strong competition on the night from both NCAA basketball and wrestling which makes the numbers the card produced even better. As for why this was the case, it’s likely that the afterglow of the huge PPV ratings that UFC 196 delivered recently, along with a generally strong showing over the past six months may have helped.
