Manfredo defeated on Contender!
Tuesday, March 8 2005
By Karl Freitag
NBC's Sylvester Stallone/Sugar Ray Leonard boxing reality show, "The Contender," debuted Monday night and opened with a big upset. Alphonso Gomez won a five-round unanimous decision over previously unbeaten Peter Manfredo Jr., and yes, these bouts count in the official records. Manfredo falls to 21-1 with 10 KOs. Gomez moves to 11-2-1 with 4 KOs.
Ratings-wise, "The Contender" finished last in its time slot. The show, which is produced by reality TV king Mark Burnett [responisble for the monster hits Survivor and The Apprentice], DreamWorks mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg and Stallone, has the highest per-episode price of any reality show ever produced. With the momentum generated by the Oscar-sweeping "Million Dollar Baby" boxing flick, "The Contender" opened with a disappointing 5.6 rating/8 share overnight rating. FOX's "American Idol" garnered a 16.1 rating/23 share and CBS "CSI Miami" had a healthy 15.9 rating/24 share.
"The Contender's" 5.6 rating means that 5.6% of every household in the U.S. was watching. The 8 share represents the percentage of households actually watching TV while the show was aired.
The show is actually very well done, and there's still a chance to see the entire series without missing anything. The debut episode will be repeated TONIGHT on CNBC at 8PM and 11PM. Episode #2 of "The Contender" is Thursday night on NBC at 10PM. After that, the series will fall into its regular time slot at 8PM on Sunday nights.
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