This past Saturday night’s UFC Fight Night 95 event in Brazil was watching by an average of 1,109,000 viewers on FOX Sports 1, peaking at 1,260,000 viewers during the main event between Cris ‘Cyborg’ Justino and Lina Lansberg.
Those are strong numbers that make the event one of the top 10 ‘Fight Night’ shows ever on FS1, the highest rating for a ‘Fight Night’ show since March, and a steep incline from last weeks’ UFC Fight Night 94: Poirier Vs Johnson card which only peaked with 905,000 viewers.
As such it appears to prove that Cris ‘Cyborg’ is indeed a significant draw for the UFC, particularly as she was facing an unheralded newcomer in Lansberg on the night.
It’ll be interesting to see how the UFC handles ‘Cyborg’ from this point forward. So far they have been forcing her to fight at a catchweight of 140lbs, but that’s led to increaasingly loud voices of disapproval from many quarters, with even UFC color commentator Joe Rogan publicly pleading on Twitter for the UFC to let her fight in her natural 145lb weight class in the future.
For her part, after emerging victorious on Saturday in dominant fashion, ‘Cyborg’ said she would somewhat reluctantly be willing to fight at a catchweight again, but only against top 10 opponents.
Meanwhile, Dana White has rekindled talk of a ‘superfight’ between ‘Cyborg’ and former bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey by claiming on the ‘UFC Unfiltered’ podcast that, “Ronda wants to fight her. They’d have to figure out at what weight they fight. But Ronda wants to fight her.”
It’s unlikely Rousey would want to face her biggest rival right away though. For now she’ll be looking to get back to winning ways and look to regain the bantamweight title she lost to Holly Holm last year, with there being talk she could go up against current champion Amanda Nunes at the end of the year, or early in 2017.
