MVP made its big MMA debut on Netflix this past Saturday night, putting on a main event triple header that featured Ronda Rousey vs. Gina Carano, Nate Diaz vs. Mike Perry, and Francis Ngannou vs. Philipe Lins. The event was solid other than the anti-climactic true main event between Rousey and Carano, which was over in 17 seconds and never really made sense to begin with.
But the fight did the job it was meant to do: it drew eyeballs in large quantities.
That’s according to pro wrestling ratings guru
Dave Meltzer, who broke down how the event did on X (formerly Twitter).
“Rousey vs. Carano for some reason was listed as a movie and not a TV show on Netflix and first day was No. 6 in the world in that category which is a bigger category than TV shows,” Meltzer wrote. “Keep in mind main event started after midnight Eastern. It beat a big WWE show. Unclear about any records but doesn’t appear to be gigantic, although was No. 1 in US, Canada, Mexico in movies which is substantial viewership.”
“It was No. 1 among movies on Netflix in the U.S., Canada, Mexico and a few other countries on Saturday. It was No. 3 in the US and 2 in Canada on Sunday.”
Contrast that to the performance of the UFC’s Apex offering.
“UFC did its record low on Paramount 13% below what a show like this would normally do,” Meltzer wrote.
For a more apples to apples comparison, Rousey vs. Carano also crushed UFC 328: Chimaev vs. Strickland as far as internet interest went.
“Google searches which is the best metric for mainstream interest were double the Chimaev fight, but that was a stat Rousey fights always dominated,” he continued. “I’d doubt [Rousey vs. Carano did] 20 million views and doubt it hits the [Velasquez vs. Junior Dos Santos] U.S. number [9.5 million] because FOX at that time is so much bigger in homes and competition is so much more difficult now. Plus, being promoted by UFC is a giant plus.”
“The ONLY thing that matters is the Netflix number,” Meltzer concluded. “Google searches is a number to learn from to find out mainstream interest, but a ton of interest and people actively watching are different. But for a show with one giant mainstream fight that does nearly 3 1/2 hours with the fight going 17 seconds greatly hurts the overall number. Even peak minute because it had no time to build as peak minutes are late in the fight.”
So MVP MMA 1 did well, but did it do well enough for Netflix to keep opening their wallet for more mixed martial arts shows? Are there even enough massive names out there to do more events that Netflix would be interested in? We’ll see what Jake Paul’s MVP puts together next and whether the streaming giant will bite based on how this event turned out.
