Honestly, I don't know where to begin in discussing the historic debut of Mixed Martial Arts in prime time on a major broadcast network Saturday.
It seemed to upset everyone, from the MMA purists who found novice Kimbo Slice to be an embarrassing symbol for the sport, to the MMA skeptics who found the entire spectacle to be a step backward for Western Civilization.
(I'll flesh out the confusing TV ratings data in the newspaper, but the bottom line is that it did pretty well, particularly among - surprise! - young males.)
Gosh, I don't know . . . It was undeniably disturbing, a weird hybrid of pro wrestling and boxing, and not necessarily more or less moral and valid than either of them.
It also was undeniably entertaining in spots, and the hyperbolic Gus Johnson was the right man for the blow-by-blow.
Given everything else on television, there is no reason to deny EliteXC and CBS another episode of this drama, but next time organizers might want to tighten up the production to shorten the endless filler between fights.
And it might want to showcase fighters other than Mr. Slice, who looked much more like a boxing prospect than an MMAer.
Comments (4)
I hope the hockey game came at least close in the ratings.These 2 have a big overlap of fans.
It was close.
The NHL can't catch a break. It finally loses it's head to head with the NBA and now this. Put it this way if Clinton, Obama and McCain were all on the ticket in November who would win. I'm sure the fighting took a nice chunk of the hockey audience away.
Here's one thing I just found out--the MMA was on delayed tape on the west coast and the NHL was on live at 5 o clock out there and in LA the MMA drew a huge rating from their 9pm-12am and the NHL drew a 1.3 rating for their 5-8pm. So maybe the ratings wouldn't be so hot otherwise MMA seems to be bigger out west than in the east.