Saturday’s star-studded World Series of Fighting Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) event peaked with 332,000 live NBC Sports Network viewers, a sharp increase of 46 percent from the promotion’s inaugural event in November that peaked with 228,000 viewers.
World Series of Fighting’s sophomore event, which took place at Revel in Atlantic City, N.J. on Saturday, March 23, averaged 210,000 live viewers, a 6 percent increase from the first event that averaged 198,000 viewers.
The live viewership increase was achieved despite the extraordinary challenge of World Series of Fighting going head-to-head on television with the highly-anticipated NCAA men’s basketball tournament game between No. 1 seed Gonzaga University and No. 9 seed Wichita State University.
Additionally, Sunday’s initial re-broadcast of the latest, five-bout TV card garnered 140,000 viewers, an increase of 75 percent f! rom the first re-broadcast of the promotion’s debut event.
“We are thrilled with the tremendous amount of enthusiasm that fans have shown the World Series of Fighting product and look forward to continuously delivering live events filled with world-class matchups between top superstars of the sport and emerging talent from around the globe,” said World Series of Fighting President and six-time world kickboxing champion and two-time Hall of Famer Ray Sefo.
In Saturday’s heavyweight main event, powerhouse Anthony “Rumble” Johnson (16-3) of Boca Raton, Fla. exchanged bombs with fellow superstar Andrei “The Pitbull” Arlovksi (18-10) of Minsk, Belarus for three rounds before Johnson earned a unanimous decision.
In the bantamweight (135 pounds) co-main event, two-time national Muay Thai champion and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu brown belt Marlon Moraes (10-4) of Jupiter, Fla. via Nova Friburgo, Brazil earned his second straight victory in the World Series of Fighting cage, scoring an explosive first round (2:55) KO on Tyson Nam (12-5) of Portland, Ore.
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt David Branch (12-3) of Brooklyn, N.Y. dominated former PRIDE Fighting Championships superstar and WEC champion Paulo Filho (23-5) of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in a middleweight (185 pounds) contest for three consecutive rounds to earn a unanimous decision victory.
In welterweight (170 pounds) action, Josh Burkman (25-9) of Salt Lake City, Utah took out Aaron “A Train” Simpson (12-5) of Phoenix, Ariz. in the opening round of their matchup.
Additional re-air dates of Saturday’s event will be announced soon.
