Although its numbers fell from peak Thursday levels, last year’s pre-VMAs edition of “Jersey Shore” posted very strong ratings for a Sunday telecast. MTV was hoping for another big performance this year.
Potentially-helpful for round two is the fact that MTV built this week’s episode around the much-anticipated fight between Ronnie and The Situation. Having been “scooped” by media outlets earlier this summer, the fight had been a key part of the promotional campaign for the current season, the show’s fourth.
“Shore” aired the beginning of the fight last week to positive ratings news–the show increased to a very impressive 4.5 adults 18-49 rating with 8.5 million viewers. With the 11PM re-run taken into account, more than 11.7 million viewers watched the action last Thursday.
As most predicted, however, the actual “fight” amounted to very little. Whereas promotional footage implied blows from Ronnie were responsible for knocking The Situation unconscious, it turns out that the concrete wall–not a cast member’s fists–actually did the damage.
The Sunday footage revealed that prior to any physical altercation between Situation and Ronnie, an amped-up Situation cracked his head into the wall and basically knocked himself out. The “fight” that had been teased in promotional footage occurred after Situation got back to his feet–Ronnie connected with a punch that didn’t seem to do much damage and then followed up with a takedown.
They wrestled a bit, but no real damage was done as production staff quickly separated the two.
The Situation did indeed go to the hospital, but the injury that made the evaluation necessary was very clearly caused by the wall rather than the brawl.
Later in the show, Situation and Ronnie appeared to make amends, with the former cracking that he drove his head into the wall to pre-emptively prepare for any pain.
