Sage Northcutt Brings In Biggest Ratings At UFC Austin

The ratings are in for last weekend’s UFC Fight Night 126: Cowboy vs. Medeiros from the Frank Erwin Center in Austin, Texas, and it turns out the biggest draw was not the main event.

While Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone’s first-round TKO over Yancy Medeiros drew 893,000 viewers, it was Sage Northcutt’s fight against Thibault Gouti in the first fight on the main card to draw the most eyeballs.

Northcutt drew 1,078,000 viewers, the highest number for the entire card. The UFC was competing against both the Olympics and NBA All-Star game on Sunday, however, the ratings were actually better than recent Fight Nights and PPVs that did far less in terms of viewership, even with less competition airing against it.

The UFC has promoted Northcutt quite a bit since his signing with the promotion in 2015, and although the 21-year-old has had mixed results thus far, it appears as if people are still tuning in to see “Super” Sage fight.

FOX says it’s streaming platforms averaged 13,959 viewers per minute as well.

UFC events are typically held on Saturday nights, making Sunday’s event in Austin a bit of an outlier. Last year, the UFC hosted a card on a Sunday headlined by Derrick Lewis and Travis Browne, which did 907,000 viewers albeit with much less competition airing simultaneously.

How do you feel about Northcutt being the card’s biggest draw, especially considering the fact that he hasn’t yet lived up to the UFC’s lofty potential?