Live viewers for the Friday, Spike TV broadcast averaged out at 542,000 with a peak of 825,000.
That makes it the second-most viewed GLORY show on Spike, with only GLORY 13 TOKYO topping it. What’s particularly notable is that the figures also represent a more that 50% increase on the figures for GLORY 18 OKLAHOMA, which averaged 352,000.
GLORY 18 took place after a nearly three-month layoff and didn’t carry much in the way of star power, whereas GLORY 19 carried a heavyweight title fight (always a draw) had Mike Tyson plugging it and probably benefited from the exposure Joe Schilling has received through his Bellator appearance and guest spot on the Joe Rogan Experience videocast.
It may also be worth noting that Nieky Holzken has been present on GLORY’s two highest-rated Spike TV cards. That may be a coincidence, but if forum chatter is anything to go by there is at least some evidence that Holzken is one of GLORY’s better-known names in the US fight fan fraternity.
Up next is GLORY 20 DUBAI on Friday, April 3. The UFC veteran Pat ‘HD’ Barry is providing the star power for that card via a co-main event fight with Peter Aerts’ former training partner Mourad Bouzidi.
The main event features the organization’s first-ever World Featherweight Championship fight. That weight class is not traditionally as big of a draw as heavier classes but it features two exceptional talents in Gabriel Varga and Mosab Amrani and the former is fighting out of Canada so has a North American connections the casual viewers will recognize.
New York’s Wayne Barrett features in the Middleweight Contender Tournament, facing Simon ‘Bad Bwoy’ Marcus of Canada. The other bracket has Alex Pereira of Brazil facing Jason Wilnis of the Netherlands. Only Marcus has never previously featured on Spike TV.
With GLORY 19 and GLORY 20 being eight weeks apart there is a still something of a gap between events, but this coming Friday’s CBS Sports broadcast of the GLORY Superfight Series 19 card does at least something to bridge that.
Plus, one of the biggest issues which faced GLORY in 2014 was event cancellations, postponements and a general air of uncertainty. With large gaps between events there was little consistency and therefore no momentum. GLORY 20 was announced several weeks ago and will benefit hugely from that.
If the company can commit to announcing GLORY 21 in the next few weeks then it will at last be hitting the kind of consistency that fans can get into. In the meantime, the GLORY 19 viewer numbers are good news for the company and attention now turns to whether the feat can be repeated for GLORY 20.
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