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Strikeforce: Silva vs. Fedor" breaks ratings records, peaks with 1.1 million viewers
by Dann Stupp on Feb 15, 2011 at 11:15 am ET
Saturday's "Strikeforce: Silva vs. Fedor" event shattered the organization's ratings records on Showtime.
Overall, the Feb. 12 event averaged 741,000 viewers and peaked with 1.1 million for the Antonio Silva vs. Fedor Emelianenko headliner. Both broke Strikeforce's previous bests.
MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) today confirmed the numbers with an industry source.
"Strikeforce: Silva vs. Fedor" took place at IZOD Center in East Rutherford, N.J., and kicked off the organization's highly anticipated eight-man heavyweight grand prix. The event received perhaps the biggest pre-event publicity push in Strikeforce history.
The new ratings records break those previously held by "Strikeforce: Carano vs. Cyborg," an August 2009 event headlined by female fighters Gina Carano and Cristiane "Cyborg" Santos that averaged 576,000 viewers and peaked with 856,000.
The organization recently had built momentum with a January event featuring welterweight champ Nick Diaz vs. Evangelista "Cyborg" Santos. That event averaged 561,000 viewers and peaked with 853,000. It now ranks third behind "Fedor vs. Silva" and "Carano vs. Santos."
Saturday's peak audience came with the second of the night's two opening-round grand-prix matchups. Silva shocked the Russian with a second-round TKO (due to a doctor's stoppage) and punched his ticket to the semifinals of the tourney.
The main card also saw Sergei Kharitonov knock out Andrei Arlovski in the first opening-round matchup. Additionally, Shane Del Rosario, Chad Griggs and Valentijn Overeem all won tourney-reserve fights in convincing fashion. The tourney's opening round continues on April 9 with Alistair Overeem vs. Fabricio Werdum and Josh Barnett vs. Brett Rogers.
Strikeforce first began airing on Showtime, a premium-cable station with approximately 18 million subscribers, in April 2009. A total of 26 Strikeforce events have aired on Showtime (and an additional two on CBS), including both "Arena Series" and "Challengers Series" shows.
"Strikeforce: Silva vs. Fedor" re-airs Wednesday on Showtime Extreme at 10:30 p.m. ET/PT.
For more on "Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Silva," including full event coverage and official results, check out the MMA Events section of
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