The UFC held its first event on FOX in 2017 this past Saturday night in Denver, Colorado and the fight card produced the next title challenger for women’s bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes as Valentina Shevchenko scored an armbar submission victory against Ultimate Fighter 18 winner Julianna Pena.
Along with Shevchenko securing a rematch against Nunes, the main card on FOX saw Jorge Masvidal score the biggest victory of his career with a knockout win against Donald Cerrone in a welterweight bout and Francis Ngannou continued his rise up the heavyweight rankings with a knockout victory against former UFC heavyweight champion Andrei Arlovski.
When it comes to the television ratings for the main card on FOX, the four-fight main card averaged 2.189 million viewers in the updated viewership and the fight card peaked at 3.003 million viewers in the 9:45-10 p.m. ET quarter-hour. Prior to the main card, the televised preliminary card aired on FS1 from 5-8 p.m. ET and came in with 619k viewers, while the post fight show ran live on FS2 following the main card and drew 75k viewers. The post fight show was re-aired at midnight on Saturday on FS1 and drew an additional 128k viewers.
The UFC will return to FOX Sports this weekend for UFC Fight Night: Bermudez vs. The Korean Zombie. The coverage on Saturday for this fight card will begin at 6:30 p.m ET/3:30 p.m. PT with the pre-fight show with Karyn Bryant, UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley and former UFC bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz on FS1. Following the conclusion of the 90-minute pre-fight show, the prelims will begin at 8 p.m. ET with Jon Anik and Brian Stann calling the fights on FS1 and the main card will start at 10 p.m. ET/7 p.m. PT.