I believe it was in his interview with Ariel Helwani before the fight where he said how nervous he was. The Zuffa brass knows the sport is not mainstream and will not get to that level until being on a platform on FOX for at least 2 years.
So if you are a hardcore MMA fan who is putting much stock into last night's ratings or the quick finish or the lack of other fights shown, just realize these are the first shots being fired in a war to take MMA mainstream.
Dude we are talking about mma fans here, one bad card and the sport sucks, one bad main event, one bad fight and a fighter is a bum, one low PPV number and the PPV model is dead, one bad rating and mma is going down.
Thats how it is.
Maybe an intelligent normal fan can say hold up, chill out, give them a year or two and then evaluate the sport, teh numbers, has the deal been good for the UFC and mma etc. But that wont be most mma fans, thats maybe 5 percent of fans do that, I'm one of them but most will say mma is dead, the sky is falling and UFC will be out of business in a year.