Well, tonight marked the debut of the world's biggest MMA organization on network television. I can't call it a success though. The UFC's primary objective with the deal on FOX was to gain more exposure to hopefully enlist some new fans. The fight that was showcased may have been one of the most anticipated fights of the year, but I can honestly say I doubt it brought in too many new fans. 

The fight was for the UFC heavyweight championship. Following his title win against Brock Lesnar, Cain Velasquez was sidelined with a torn rotator cuff and successive surgery. Instead of sitting idly by, Junior Dos Santos took a fight against former title challenger Shane Carwin and won, setting up the highly anticipated much between he and Velasquez. Shortly after the UFC announced a deal with FOX, the fight was slated to be showed on the debut show. 

Sure, hardcore fans were absolutely pumped for this fight, but now I'll explain why the whole hour program on FOX didn't deliver on what it was intended to do.

The first 30 minutes of the program were strictly talking between FOX's Curt Menefee along with Dana White and Brock Lesnar. This effectively ended any chance to show any other bout on the card, which was an awful decision. If the UFC wanted to grab the attention of people, they should have broadcasted the lightweight fight between Ben Henderson and Clay Guida. Not only was it a number one contender fight for the right to face current UFC lightweight champion Frankie Edgar, but both fighters are known to bring immense energy into their fights and both have a diverse skill set. Do the math, if the Velasquez-Dos Santos fight could have gone up to 25 minutes, and the max for the Henderson-Guida fight was 15, why was something not done to accommodate it into the broadcast? It just doesn't make sense. 

Well, guess what? It came back to bite the UFC in the behind because pretty much everyone knew that the championship fight was only going to go one of two ways. Either Dos Santos was going to score a quick knockout in one of the early rounds, or Velasquez was going to utilize his wrestling and either get the fight to a decision or get a late round victory via ground and pound punches. 

Well, it ended up being the former. Dos Santos connected with an overhand right to the side of Velasquez's head at roughly a minute into the first round. He followed up with punches to the head of Velasquez and the fight was called at 1:04 into round one. Yes, that's right. One minute and four seconds. That is what effectively killed the broadcast. One fight and it only lasted a tiny bit more than a minute. 

The UFC would have done themselves a lot of good if they got the Henderson-Guida fight on the card because everyone was talking about the fight afterward. Even though it was a unanimous decision victory for Henderson, it was a closely contested fight with many different facets of MMA on display. Both fighters effectively used punches, kicks, knees, wrestling and submissions. If fact, there were points in the fight where both Guida and Henderson went for the victory with submission. UFC middleweight Jason "Mayhem" Miller called the fight a definite "Fight of the Year" candidate. 

So, that pretty much sums up my thoughts. While the UFC is most certainly welcome on FOX, their first endeavor was more of a failure than a success in my opinion. Hopefully they learn from their mistakes.