Live MMA debut on network TV was not pretty
“You can hate me, you can say whatever you want about me. I’ve been busting my ass for the last…
“You can hate me, you can say whatever you want about me. I’ve been busting my ass for the last ten years in this sport, and there’s a lot of great athletes in this sport…and last night was a f—— joke. Did it set us back? I don’t know. I did Sportscenter today, where some guy’s saying this stuff shouldn’t even be on television. I agree. What happened last night should not be on f—— television, especially network television. But you can’t say that about the real fighters in this sport.”
-Dana White
On May 31, 2008, EliteXC brought a live MMA event to primetime network television for the first time in American TV history.
The MMA community had high hopes for what network exposure might help the sport accomplish.
Carano missed weight badly for her fight with Kaitlin Young, and didn’t seem especially thrilled about being on the card at all. The event was headlined by former internet brawler Kimbo Slice (who had just two pro MMA fights at the time) taking on journeyman heavyweight James Thompson (who was riding a two-fight losing streak and had been knocked out in five of his last eight bouts).
The good news was, the millions of viewers showed up.
The bad news was what they saw when they got there. Dancing girls, some not quite primetime-worthy performances, and, strangely, not all that much action. After the show had been on the air for 32 minutes, there had been 61 seconds of actual fighting. When it was 70 minutes into the show, there had been just 2:12 of fighting.
By the time the sloppy Slice-Thompson heavyweight affair finally ended, EliteXC had run over by nearly an hour in its network debut.
Newspaper columnists and radio hosts around the country heaped various amounts of scorn on CBS for airing the spectacle.
So what’s different for the UFC’s debut on FOX?
In short, everything. Better fighters, probably better production values, and much better pre-fight promotion. While CBS seemed tepid in its support of MMA both with EliteXC and later with Strikeforce, FOX has already thrown its weight behind the UFC, plugging the Velasquez-dos Santos fight on NFL games and World Series broadcasts.
This event also has simplicity on its side. With just one fight to get done inside of one hour, running long won’t be an issue, nor will an overburdened slate that asks new viewers to try and differentiate between multiple fighters and weight classes.