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Cagewriter - UFC

Cagewriter

Sun Nov 13 01:41am EST

Is a 64-second KO bad for UFC’s first trip to network television?

By Steve Cofield

Is a 64-second KO bad for UFC’s first trip to network television?

In an era where football is king during the fall, combat sports carved out a nice little night for itself. Even if casual fans walked away annoyed or irked, MMA and boxing got them talking.

On the boxing side, "robbery" is being screamed by many after Manny Pacquiao escaped a big upset with a majority decision over Juan Manuel Marquez. In MMA, the UFC and Fox had to deal with the interesting result of just one minute and four seconds from its much publicized heavyweight title fight between Junior dos Santos and Cain Velasquez.

Dana White explained that he was thrilled with the broadcast and the 64-second fight was nothing to be embarassed about. The CEO and chairman of Fox Sports David Hill, gave an interesting answer when asked about the short fight that filled the entire hour.

"It absolutely delivered everything I hoped it would," Hill told ESPN.com. "I spoke to Dana and maybe, tactically, Dana didn't play it the right way. But this is what you get in this sport. This is world heavyweight champion action."

Hill said it comes with the territory in fighting.

"I once bought a night of boxing from legendary promoter Don King," Hill said. "There were three bouts on that card and do you know how much boxing I got? Forty-seven seconds. I've been covering fights forever. It comes with the territory."

So does complaining from some fans.

"If it had gone five rounds tonight, people would have gone, 'It went so long, it was boring,'" said Hill.

The Fox exec is still squarely behind MMA.

"This is genuine. This is real. It's this generation's boxing," said Hill.

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