BAM BAM BEATS THE BUZZER!! @bambamtuivasa
with a HUGE KO at the end of RD 1!!#UFC254
#InAbuDhabi @VisitAbuDhabi
pic.twitter.com/BAlo70TjqD— UFC Canada (@UFC_CA)
October 24, 2020
Khabib
Nurmagomedov vs. Justin
Gaethje may have been trending as the biggest pay-per-view
ever, but that wasn’t reflected in the ratings for the
UFC 254 preliminary card.
According to
ShowBuzz Daily, the UFC 254 prelims averaged 343,000 viewers on
ESPN2 for a broadcast that ran from 12 p.m. ET to 2 p.m. ET.
That figure is the lowest for a pay-per-view preliminary card this
year. The previous low, the UFC 253 prelims, averaged 523,000 views
on ESPN2. Saturday’s offering was bumped off of ESPN due to daytime
college football coverage. All the other pay-per-view prelims of
2020 aired on ESPN and had evening start times.
The UFC 254 prelims featured a heavyweight clash between Tai Tuivasa
and Stefan
Struve. Tuivasa won that fight by knockout at the 4:59 mark of
Round 1. The preliminary card didn’t offer much in the way of
mainstream star power, however.
UFC 254 took place this past Saturday at the Flash Forum in Abu
Dhabi and was headlined by the lightweight title clash between
Nurmagomedov and Gaethje, which Nurmagomedov won via submission in
Round 2. At the beginning of last week, UFC president Dana White
said the event was
trending to outsell UFC 229, which moved 2.4 million
pay-per-views for a card headlined by Nurmagomedov and Conor
McGregor.