Episode 3 of PRIME TIME: GSP/Hardy bounces back.

A large sigh of relief could recently be heard coming from the Zuffa offices.

After a 50% drop in veiwership from episode one to episode two of Prime Time: GSP/Hardy, things took a turn for the better with the third and final episode.

Wednesday night's show drew an ave of 613,000 viewers, up 107,000 from last week. That number is not too far off from the final ep of the GSP/Penn series (662k).

GSP/Hardy:
Episode 1: 1,000,000
Episode 2: 506,000
Episode 3: 613,000
GSP/Penn:
Episode 1: 880,000
Episode 2: 825,000
Episode 3: 662,000

Last week, I talked about some of possible reasons for the drop. Looking back, I really do think St. Paddy's day did a number on it. This recovery is solid and does show that there is a sizeable number of folks interested in the match-up. I also think being just days before the bout played a role, media coverage really increased in the last several days.

Episode three was fairly strong, with Hardy stepping up and delivering in the mic. He came across as confident and took more than a few jabs at GSP. After a lackluster second episode, some spice was certainly needed.

I think the buyrate will be 625-675k, and likely closer to the latter.