(1) The Countdown was on a different night than normal.
(2) There are multiple Countdowns this week that may divide viewership.
(3) Fans may have already made up their minds to buy this PPV so had no reason to watch it ,especially opposite a MNF time slot.

It is unreasonable to think that UFC 91 will have fewer buys than UFC 90. Their logic of “If A, therefore B” is rather simplistic. They need to throw in some critical reasoning before shooting from the hip. That is a what good journalism is about.

MMAPayout.com has this to say about that:

“MMAPayout.com has learned that the premiere of Countdown to UFC 91 on Spike drew only 537,000 viewers last night. That number is 11.7% below the average of 608,083 viewers drawn by the first twelve editions of the series this year. The program aired at 11PM EST in hopes of taking advantage of WWE Raw as a lead-in.

Based on MMAPayout.com’s formula for predicting pay-per-view buys based on Countdown viewership, UFC 91 would be expected to draw only 468,801 buys. While the actual pay-per-view number is virtually certain to be well exceed that projection, the rating is a troubling early sign for the UFC’s hopes of surpassing one million buys given the past strong correlation between Countdown viewership and pay-per-view buys.”

In particular, McCrory vs. Hazelett and Stevenson vs. Florian really interest me.

I’m not sure what it is about Kenny Florian… I just don’t get excited for his fights.

That said, it’s still the favorite to be the biggest PPV event of the year. I hope The Ultimate 2008 manages to overtake it, if nothing else than for the message it’ll send to promoters.

On a side note, Amir should consider himself very blessed. How many 0-0 fighters win a promotional platform like TUF, score their first official pro victory on national television in front of millions, then follow that up by fighting on the main card of one of the biggest UFC events in history. Crazy. I think the guy sold his soul to the devil.

Because Brock Lesnar *is* god.