Any inclination to blame last week’s disappointing “The Ultimate Fighter Live” premiere ratings on the overly-lengthy collection of fights involving “no-name fighters” went out the window this week.
Episode two, which did not follow the “fight to get into the house” model, dipped to an even more alarming viewership total, managing an average of just 1.07 million viewers. That marks a decline of roughly 16% from last week’s very disappointing premiere number.
The show also struggled with adults 18-49, scoring a mere 0.6 in the demo.
To the show’s credit, it did face heightened sports competition from NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament action, although none of the head-to-head games delivered something that could be construed as a “monster rating.”
It did not, however, deal with head-to-head competition from WWE SmackDown! this week. That show, for what it is worth, was down slightly this week, responsible for a 0.8 rating and 2.84 million viewers.
And it is definitely worth noting that “TUF” actually underperformed in comparison with its movie lead-in, which scored a 0.6 and 1.47 million against stiffer basketball competition.
