The UFC debuted on Fight Island this past weekend with a loaded UFC 251 card, which saw Kamaru Usman successfully defend the UFC Welterweight Title against Jorge Masvidal in the main event.
Before the UFC 251 pay-per-view broadcast began, an eight fight preliminary card aired live on ESPN, with Jiri Prochazka defeating Volkan Oezdemir in the featured spot, and that brought in an average of 809,000 viewers according to MMA Fighting. That number helped the UFC 251 Preliminary Card come in at number one in the TV ratings for Saturday Night.
Other fights on the UFC 251 preliminary card saw Muslim Salikhov defeat Elizeu Zaleski Dos Santos, Makwan Amirkani defeat Danny Henry, Leonardo Santos defeat Roman Bogatov, Marcin Tybura defeat Maxim Grishin, Raulian Paiva defeat Zhalgas Zhumagulov, Karol Rosa defeat Vanessa Melo and David Grant defeat Martin Day.
There wasn’t much competition going up against UFC 251 on Saturday Night other than a Premier League soccer game that aired live on NBC Sports.
Up next for the UFC is UFC Fight Night: Kattar vs. Ige, which takes place tonight from Fight Island with Calvin Kattar and Dan Ige headlining.
