Via WEC.TV

NEW YORK, N.Y. (June 12, 2009)—VERSUS, the exclusive television home of World Extreme Cagefighting® (WEC®), garnered a 1.1 national HH rating and was the top-rated cable network in the country among all key male demos for its live WEC telecast on Sunday, June 7, featuring the most-anticipated featherweight championship re-match in MMA history between Mike Brown and Urijah Faber.

The fight lived up to the hype and featured five full rounds of intense action in the cage with Brown proving to viewers that he is still the #1 featherweight fighter in the world.  Faber, who broke his hand in the first round, battled it out until the very end, but without full use of both hands, Faber was unable to overcome Brown and win back his belt.  VERSUS re-aired the entire Brown vs. Faber II fight card immediately following its live telecast on Sunday and, due to overwhelming demand from fans, twice again on Wednesday, June 10.  In total, the bout was seen by more than six million viewers.

In Sacramento, Faber’s hometown and the fight’s location, the live telecast on June 7 garnered a 2.2 HH rating, making VERSUS the top-rated cable network in the city for the time period.

While this is great news for Versus, this number is still not higher than the all time high of WEC 34: Pulver vs. Faber 1.  It also indicates that Faber is THE draw for them, as the ratings are always pretty high when he fights on Versus.  So there's no doubt that we'll see him back in the mix with Brown at some point provided Brown keeps the title.  WEC 41 was an outstanding card.  The encore of the fight on Wednesday did well also, and I hope the fans that saw it appreciated it as much as I did and spread the word about the promotion.  It'll be interesting to see how WEC 42: Torres vs. Bowles does.  One would hope there is some carry over from 41, but I don't know if that's a real possibility.  I guess we'll see.