Bellator made its second successful trip to Spike TV last night with the debut of King Mo and a huge welterweight title fight between Ben Askren and Karl Amoussou.
The preliminary Nielsen ratings landed the show lower than last weeks Bellator 85 which came in at 0.94 and .4 (18-49.)
This weeks Bellator 86 just barely cracked the top 100 cable ratings for the night and landed at a 0.81 and a .3 in the 18-49 adult demographic. The show did have a sharp increase in the 12-24 male demographic compared to last week being up 48%.
Overall this was not a terrible number at all, especially when you compare it to the competition that was out there. Bellator directly competed once again with The Big Bang Theory on TBS, MTV’s Buckwild and a huge NBA Basketball game between the Celtics and Knicks on TNT. All of these shows drew well over 2.0 million total viewers and 1.0 in the 18-49 adult demographic.
The lead-in for Bellator 86 last night was another two-hour episode of Impact Wrestling that once again drew solid ratings numbers. The show landed with a 1.57 million total viewers and a .5 in the 18-49 adult demographic.
As I said last week, this weeks number was extremely important and Bellator was able to handle itself. Even with the increased competition from MTV, the NBA and countless other shows Bellator was still able to keep its head above water. This is also the second week-in-a-row that Impact has proven to be an extremely strong lead-in and this is only going to help Bellator in the long run.
I for one am extremely interested to see where Bellator can land next week with no title fights on the card. Let’s hope for another consistent week.