Bellator 88 Brings TV Ratings Up Slightly, As Season 8 Marks Solid Returns

Bellator MMA is now four weeks into its eighth season – its first on Spike TV – and the TV ratings are holding steady.

Thursday night’s Bellator 88 accounted for 807,000 viewers for the live broadcast, and another 268,000 on the immediate replay, according to MMAWeekly.com's industry sources. Not blockbuster numbers, but still respectable, and several times better than the numbers the promotion typically drew on MTV2.

Those numbers also represent a bit of a rebound from the seaon’s low point, Bellator 87, which drew just 705,000 viewers. Bellator 87 also has the distinction of being the only event of the first four that didn’t feature a title fight.

Bellator 88 saw a new middleweight champion crowned when Alexander Shlemenko scored a second-round knockout of Maiquel Falcao to capture the belt vacated by current UFC fighter Hector Lombard.

The title bouts continue next week when bantamweight champion Eduardo Dantas puts his title on the line against Marcos Galvao at Bellator 89.

Bellator Season 8 TV Ratings

Bellator 85: 938,000
Bellator 86: 812,000
Bellator 87: 705,000
Bellator 88: 807,000

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