Strikeforce: Rockhold vs. Jardine Draws 344,000 Viewers

[No More Sorrow]

This past weekend's "Strikeforce: Rockhold vs. Jardine" event drew a 0.93 household rating and an average audience of 344,000 viewers.

MMAjunkie.com (UFC blog for UFC news, UFC rumors, fighter interviews and event previews/recaps | MMAjunkie.com) today confirmed the figures with an industry source.

Despite the Jan. 7 event taking place on Showtime's "free-preview" weekend, the total viewership was short of the 522,000 viewers Strikeforce averaged for its eight "Arena Series" event in 2011.

"Strikeforce: Rockhold vs. Jardine" took place at The Joint at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. The night's five-fight main card aired on Showtime, and four preliminary-card bouts aired on Showtime Extreme for the first time ever. (Ratings for Showtime Extreme weren't immediately available.)

Despite middleweight champ Luke Rockhold's main-event knockout of UFC vet Keith Jardine in the championship headliner, as well as Robbie Lawler's vicious knockout of middleweight Adlan Amagov in the co-headliner, the event only drew more viewers than one of Strikeforce's eight "Arena Series" shows held in 2011.

Unlike those events, which were available in approximately 18 million homes, the free-preview weekend was available in approximately 60 million homes this past weekend. However, Strikeforce recently lost many of its top draws, including Nick Diaz, Alistair Overeem, Dan Henderson and Fedor Emelianenko.

The most recent event, "Strikeforce: Melendez vs. Masvidal," averaged 460,000 viewers this past month.

The ratings for Strikeforce "Arena Series" shows since 2011 include:

1. "Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Silva" (February 2011): 741,000 viewers
2. "Strikeforce: Overeem vs. Werdum" (June 2011): 624,000
3. "Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Henderson" (July 20011): 571,000
4. "Strikeforce: Diaz vs. Cyborg" (January 20011): 561,000
5. "Strikeforce: Diaz vs. Daley" (April 2011): 528,000
6. "Strikeforce: Melendez vs. Masvidal" (December 2011): 460,000
7. "Strikeforce: Feijao vs. Henderson" (March 2011): 412,000
8. "Strikeforce: Rockhold vs. Jardine" (January 2012): 344,000*
9. "Strikeforce: Barnett vs. Kharitonov" (September 2011): 274,000

* - Aired during a Showtime "free-preview" weekend

MMAJunkie.com

 

[Slim]

Fedor is a draw. Bam. Followed by Overeem.

 

[Troy]

No real surprise that the rating dropped after UFC took most of the top drawing fighters from Strikeforce. I can see the Heavyweight tournament final drawing a better rating as long as they advertisement it as the Heavyweight title tournament final and not just Barnett vs Cormier.