Spike TV

(I think we all know what the young male audience was tuning in to see: Randy Couture's brilliant and intoxicating smile. Props: MMA TKO)

Spike TV is a lot like those jerks who you play in a fantasy football league with.  There’s always one sure way to know when they did better than you, and it’s by checking your email inbox.  Spike sent out another email today touting the triumph of UFC 105 over Strikeforce on CBS, at least among a few key demographics.  According to Spike, UFC 105 drew an average of 2.9 million viewers on Saturday, which is considerably less than the 4.04 million that Strikeforce averaged.  UFC 105 peaked with 3.7 million viewers during the main event, whereas Strikeforce had 5.46 million watching Brett Rogers get his head knocked off. 

But just because they technically lost the overall ratings battle to a network TV event (which is expected), doesn’t mean they can’t hype their own numbers in the young male demographic that the UFC and Spike TV collectively own.  Just check out this handy breakdown they provided:

(Props: MMA TKO)

As expected, last night’s Kimbo Slice/Roy Nelson fight drew a record-breaking audience to Spike TV’s “Ultimate Fighter.”  While the entire hour averaged 5.3 million viewers, the actual fight portion of the show pulled in, according to the press release sent out by Spike, “a staggering 6.1 million viewers” for what was a predictable and not terribly exciting one-sided victory for “Big Country.”  That pummeling now holds the distinction of being the most watched UFC fight ever on Spike TV, so it sounds like somebody really does owe Nelson a Double Whopper with cheese.  And God help you if he finds a pickle on there.

Okay, so maybe our close reading of Roy Nelson’s cryptic Twitter update got a little carried away and missed the more obvious implication of “Big Country’s” Babe Ruth reference before last night’s fight with Kimbo Slice on “The Ultimate Fighter.”  While our interpretation is still more fun, Nelson’s makes more sense, especially when he explains it thusly:

My plan was, I was going to stand with him as long as I could. Because I wasn't really going to shoot on him, just because that's what he was expecting. And then if he came in flurrying, I was just going to bodylock him, take him down and crucifix him.  You know how Babe Ruth used to point to the fence and say, "I'm going to hit this home run"? I did exactly what I wanted: take no hits, get it to the ground and just win.

Whether the Bambino ever actually did that is still unclear, but no one can say Nelson didn’t do exactly what he set out to.  He also says that while Dana White may have felt the pummeling wasn’t too severe, Kimbo Slice looked “like the Elephant Man” afterwards, due to all the knots on his head. 

Judging by his Twitter updates, Roy Nelson is really looking forward to tonight's episode of "The Ultimate Fighter," perhaps so much so that he's willing to spoil it for all 180 of his followers (and oh yeah, CagePotatoMMA is among that lucky few).  So what exactly should we take from this cryptic missive?  Let's see if we can deconstruct these three sentences and find out what it is "Big Country" is really trying to say:

- Roy's reference to Babe Ruth -- not the candy bar -- is clearly an attempt to distract fans from his own physique by reminding them of a great athlete with an even less impressive body than his own.  It's kind of the same trick that girls use when they surround themselves with hideously-dressed bridesmaids on their wedding day.

(In the sculpted chest hair battle, it's already Kimbo: 1, Roy Nelson: 0)

If you were surprised how quickly Dana White changed his attitude about Kimbo Slice once the opportunity for the UFC to make money off the internet-brawler-turned-bread-getter presented itself, then congratulations, you have only just now discovered the sport of MMA, the UFC, and the business of fight promotion.  Welcome, we're glad to have you.  Those of us who have been following this stuff in general, and Dana White specifically, saw this change of heart coming.

But over at Yahoo! Sports, Kevin Iole seems blown away by what he refers to as a “double standard” in the way the UFC is hyping Kimbo Slice.  Iole criticizes the UFC’s use of Slice for “exhibiting much the same behavior that Elite XC and promoter Gary Shaw were so roundly criticized for,” and also calls out White for giving Kimbo at least one more fight in the UFC after the show concludes, “regardless of the outcome of the show.”

On the surface, this seems like a valid criticism.  White used to say that the only way Kimbo would get in the UFC was to win a season of TUF.  Now it seems like it was enough just to show up.  But there’s still no comparison between how EliteXC pushed Slice and how the UFC is doing it.