It is official: Saturday night’s 29th installment of UFC on FOX, headlined by Dustin Poirier’s second-round win over Eddie Alvarez, was the lowest-rated event in the seven-year history of the series, averaging a 1.04 rating and 1,678,000 viewers.
The number is perplexing on a number of levels. While July is harder to draw television viewers on Saturday nights, the number was 18 percent down from the July show last year and 41 percent down from two years ago. This year’s card, on paper, should have easily topped last year’s show, as well as many other FOX shows in recent years.