UFC 86 Defeats Championship Boxing in U.K.
Published by Scoop Malinowski on July 9th, 2008 in History

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Last weekend something historic happened in the boxing-MMA rivalry for sports entertainment dollars. In Great Britain this past weekend, there were two major sporting events to be televised by Setanta network – The WBO Junior Welterweight clash from Las Vegas between Kendall Holt and Ricardo Torres – and the UFC Light Heavyweight showdown between Rampage Jackson and Forrest Griffin, also in Las Vegas.

Setanta had a decision to make: Televise which event on Setanta Sports 1 which has the wider audience and is available on free view? And relegate which one – UFC or championship boxing – to Setanta 2 which gets fewer viewers?

In what could be construed as possibly a landmark decision in MMA history, Setanta 1 actually chose to show the UFC 86 show live.

It was the first time Setanta has shown a UFC event live from the United States and thus was given priority over Torres-Holt.

Source: Boxing News magazine of Great Britain.