Mixed Martial Arts Fans Fume As TV Broadcaster Shows Peppa Pig Instead

Mixed Martial Arts Fans Fume As TV Broadcaster Shows Peppa Pig Instead

Unbeknownst to anyone at B&T, but there was a rather big MMA (mixed martial arts) fight on Saturday between welterweight champion Rory MacDonald and middleweight champion Gegard Mousasi (Mousasi knocked him senseless, apparently).

The fight took place in San Jose, California, and didn’t punch-off until 10pm local time.

That meant an early start for British MMA fans who had to set their alarms for 5am to catch all the bloodied action.

However, when fight fans tuned-in for broadcaster Channel Five’s early morning coverage, instead of being greeted with the spectacle of two men trying to kill one another they got the kids’ cartoon Peppa Pig instead. Cue the social media rage below (although most saw the funny side):

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But apparently it wasn’t Channel Five’s fault. Because the fight ran late, it didn’t start until 6am UK time and, due to broadcasting laws, the network is unable to show programs rated 15-plus at that time slot.

Bellator – who owns the MMA broadcast rights – said via its company president Scott Coker: “I think that when I think about the replay, I think that we can probably work it out.

“But it’s six in the morning on a Sunday there and we won’t be able to work this out until Sunday our time, Monday their time. But we are working on it.

“Believe me, when it switched over there were a lot of texts going back and forth and they all were not friendly. We were trying to fix it, we thought it was a technical glitch.

“But it wasn’t, it was a governmental issue. I can promise you the next time it’s not going to happen.

“We’ll keep it down to five fights instead of six — like we normally do — and we tried to over deliver for the fans and we just went over. It’s an unfortunate situation,” he said.




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Channel Five Mixed martial arts Peppa Pig

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