Episode 2 of Prime Time: Georges St. Pierre vs. Dan Hardy takes a big drop.

And there was no joy in Mudville...ok, it is not that bad, but the second episode of Prime Time: GSP vs. Hardy can't have Zuffa and Spike folk dancing around the desks.

Ep 2, which aired on Wednesday night, drew 506,000 viewers and.43 rating, down from 1,000,000 and a rating of about .9. Losing half the audience is a real surprise, but looking at the promotion of the show, it makes some sense. Spike inadvertently aired commercials of Prime Time: GSP/Penn. Now one could shrug it off if it happened once, but they it repeatedly. Earlier this week, Spike also accidentally released a promotional photo for TUF 11 that revealed the final members of the two teams. Oops. Does Spike have some new interns?

I don't have the demos of males 18-49 and 18-34, but am hoping to get them. Did St. Patrick's Day play a part? I spent the entire day on the road for a funeral and drank not a drop (despite being 1/4 Irish) but there are plenty of folk that spend the entire day and night boozing mightily. That may have played some role, but likely not all of it.

Episode one was, in my opinion, very strong. GSP showed a bit of fire and Hardy was brash and in your face. But ep two was just sort of there. Not bad, but more of the same and little to really grab out attention. GSP is training with great guys, we know that. Dan Hardy does not like GSP's trainer giving him little chance of winning. What did Dan expect him to say? And Dan, your own coach was talking down GSP in ep house. There is this saying about glass houses.

But the entire episode just seemed to wander along. There was little narative to pull us in. Ep three is the go home show and they really need to turn it up a notch and get folks fired up. Most of us think that Dan is going to lose, but a strong ep should help get folks emotionally invested in the match-up.

My suggestions for the final ep is to have Hardy address the fact that he is in a postion to become the first U.K. fighter to become a champion. With a win, he would become the poster boy for U.K. MMA. There has to be mixed feelings about that. Pride to be sure, but a hell of a lot of pressure. If nothing else, he is headling a PPV, something only one other U.K. fighter has done before.

For GSP, talk about what a win here does for him in terms of his legacy. Since the last PT series, he has successfully defended his title twice. With each win, he comes closer to being labeled the greatest WW of all-time (a title that is currently worn by Matt Hughes).

For each of them, this fight means something different. Talk about it and build up the stakes.

Hardy, along with the PT crew, has done a good job of building himself up. I think he has to realize that even if he loses to GSP, this show offers him a chance to increase his visibility and become more of a name fighter. And he has mixed cockiness with good-natured humor and the result is a fairly likeable and funny guy.

Another downside is that the Countdown to 111 followed Prime Time. The Countdown show was pretty decent, with Frank Mir delivering more than a few entertaining moments. Frank is a guy that can add buys with his mic work. Had this been seen by a larger audience, it would have helped the buy rate.

I think 500,000 is the base in terms of success. Under 500k is, by virtually any measure, a failure. So this is certainly bad news, but not a disaster. But there is a real chance that the third ep could dip below that number. The second ep was not overly exciting and GSP/Penn trended downward with each ep (Starting with 880,000 and ending up with 662,000). Nothing on this show is going to pull buys away from 111, but an inability to hold onto those initial viewers throws some cold water on those that thought ep 1 gave 111 a shot at 800 or 900k.

My original prediction was 675,000 buys and I think that is pretty realistic. 700-750k would not be a shock, but I don't see this doing more than 750k no matter what. The initial thoughts within Zuffa were between 600 and 650k and that is reasonable. It has been some time since a PPV had the momentum of a previous strong show and, as I said last week, many folks have gotten out of the habit of buying the shows. With 111, they have a run of very strong shows and it should be sunny skies from here on out. But first they have to get everyone back on board the ppv train.