Slice of Success: Ratings for Kimbo vs. Nelson Smash UFC-Spike Record

Share on Facebook posted 10-02-09 by John Freeman Gill

Kimbo Slice may have no ground game, and he may have spent much of Wednesday’s TKO loss to Big Country Nelson with his awesome beard and golden grill lost in the sea of blubber that is Nelson’s belly, but that didn’t keep the charismatic YouTube street brawler from helping Spike TV attract new viewers in droves. As MMAjunkie.com reported, 6.1 million viewers tuned in to watch the Roy “Big Country” Nelson and Kevin “Kimbo Slice” Ferguson elimination fight on The Ultimate Fighter 10. That bulging viewership, which included legions of MMA newbies, not only squashed the two-week-old UF ratings record of 4.1 million as emphatically as Big Country’s gut squashed Kimbo’s bald noggin, the episode’s popularity made it the top-rated UFC event ever broadcast on Spike TV. Even in defeat, then, Kimbo is such a viewer magnet that he managed to outdraw his own UF coach, Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, whose September 2007 bout against Dan Henderson was seen by 5.9 million people, the previous UFC-program record on Spike.

Small wonder, then, that UFC president Dana White went out of his way in a postfight interview to pooh-pooh Big Country’s victory, comparing the big man’s punches to Kimbo’s head with those of a little girl. White needs Kimbo — needs him bad — if he wants to maintain UF’s sky-high ratings, so he appeared to be doing everything he could, just moments after the fight ended, to build the vanquished Kimbo back up. And in case anyone doubted that the show’s producers would find a way to shoehorn Kimbo Slice back into the season’s remaining fight docket, plenty of attention was paid during Wednesday’s episode to Big Baby’s ailing knee — while we also learned of a convenient loophole in the rules that would allow a teammate (not naming names, but it rhymes with Bimbo Mice) to take the place of an injured comrade.

All together now: When is an elimination bout not an elimination bout? When the dude who loses just happens to be your top ratings draw.