If you asked a lot of hardcore fans and analysts going into UFC on Fox 20, it seems like the common reaction was that this wasn't a card to get anyone very excited.
There were two big, name fights at the top of the event, and a lot of "who's this guy/gal?" underneath. It seemed primed to show that Holly Holm really hadn't kept the shine off her win over Ronda Rousey in the way the UFC might have hoped.
Instead, it seems to have shown just the opposite. Wrestling Observer's Figure Four Online reports that UFC on Fox 20 drew 2.79 million viewers in the second hour of the main card, and averaged 2.45 million overall, to give it the highest overnight ratings in months. The last show to pull significantly better numbers than that was UFC on Fox 14, headlined by Alexander Gustafsson vs. Anthony Johnson and co-mained by Gegard Mousasi vs. Dan Henderson.
And while this show doesn't look like it'll hit that Gus vs. Rumble watermark, even just the early numbers (which usually end up getting adjusted upwards) make Holm vs. Shevchenko the 3rd biggest UFC on Fox show since they began dipping below the 3 million mark at UFC on Fox 8. For a fight card that was banking almost entirely on fans' familiarity with Holly Holm to bring in casual viewers, it looks like she delivered.
