The UFC’s third trip to ION television yielded a respectable rating.

Now that the UFC on SPIKE deal has pretty much reached its maturity and the live content on the station has ceased. The UFC opted to go with ION television for last weekend’s UFC 140 preliminary card.

UFC 140 took place this evening from the Air Canada Center in Toronto, Canada and was headlined by a light-heavyweight title fight between Jon Jones and Lyoto Machida.

On the night ION aired four live bouts which included three stoppages and one hard fought bout that ended with a split decision.

It was the Jabouin vs. Watson bout that opened up the live broadcast with the split decision going to Jabouin. Next on the docket was the domination of Makdessi at the hands of long-time MMA veteran Dennis Hallman who took his opponent down from the start of the bell and ended the fight with a rear-naked-choke just two minutes into the first frame.

The third bout of the night saw Philippou brutalize Hamman and win via knockout in the first round. UFC officials chose to put a light-heavyweight contest in the featured slot of the ION broadcast between Pokrajac and Soszynski which was another first round knockout won by Pokrajac.

The two hour broadcast drew in an official 808,000 viewers which is far less than the UFC on Spike Prelims special average, but up from the other two events aired on ION.

UFC 140 was the last UFC program to be broadcast on the cable station and the promotion will now shift all their free programming to FOX and its network of affiliate stations.

Click here for the latest UFC 140 coverage provided by BJPENN.COM

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