Bellator Dynamite 1 Draws Only 800,000 Viewers
Bellator Dynamite 1 took place on this past Saturday at the SAP Center in San Jose, California and the main card aired on Spike TV in prime time.
The event was stacked as a light heavyweight Championship fight between current champion Liam McGeary and UFC veteran Tito Ortiz was the main event.
The event featured a Glory Kickboxing card that saw Saulo Cavalari vs. Zack Mwekassa battle it out for the vacant Glory light heavyweight championship. Also on the card featured a Glory featherweight championship match between Gabriel Varga (c) and Serhiy Adamchuck.
The event averaged 800,000 viewers between 9 p.m. and 12:42 a.m, which is not what Bellator MMA officials were expecting. Bellator was expecting to do similar numbers to what they did back at Bellator 138, which was headlined by Ken Shamrock vs. Kimbo Slice. That event averaged 1.58 million viewers and peaked at 2.1 million for the main event.
The show peaked with the first fight of the night with the King Mo Lawal vs. Linton Vassell first-round light heavyweight tournament fight doing 930,000 viewers, but the next fight (Phil Davis vs. Emanuel Newton) dropped with 860,000 viewers.
The Keri Taylor-Melendez vs. Hadley Griffith Glory Kickboxing fight did 848,000 viewers, while The Paul Daley vs. Fernando Gonzalez fight did quarter hours of 835,000 and 870,000.
The Josh Thomson vs. Mike Bronzoulis MMA fight did quarter hours of 792,000 and 780,000 viewers from 10:45 p.m. to 11:15 p.m.
The Glory Kickboxing light heavyweight title fight between Saulo Cavalari and Zack Mwekassa did 794,000 and 788,000 quarter viewers.
In the co-main event, the Davis vs. Francis Carmont light heavyweight tournament final did 690,000 viewers, which was the lowest quarter hour of the show.
The main event of Ortiz vs. McGeary in the 12:15 to 12:30 a.m. time slot did 711,000 viewers while the last few minutes and post-match, from 12:30 a.m. to 12:42 a.m., did 807,000 viewers.
Bellator’s next event comes this Friday night with Bellator 143.
