Channel 5 showed Peppa Pig instead of a huge MMA fight and people were not happy

If you are an avid follower of the MMA world you'll be aware that quite a big fight happened at the weekend.

The main event of Bellator 206 on Saturday night featured welterweight champion Rory MacDonald facing off against middleweight champion Gegard Mousasi.

This huge clash of champions was an eagerly anticipated event for MMA fans around the globe, with many staying up late to watch the fight.

As the fight in San Jose, California didn't start till 10 pm EST, UK fans would had to have been awake at around 6 am to see the contest.

Channel 5, which has the UK broadcasting rights to Bellator was showing the event but had only scheduled their programming of the show until 5 am.

However, the show ran considerably over so when viewers tuned into to watch the fight, they were instead greeted with an episode of Peppa Pig and they were not happy.

This awkward moment obviously saw Channel 5 become the ire of many MMA fans but there is an actual legal reason as to why the fight couldn't be shown in the UK at that time.

As combat sports journalist Gareth A Davies pointed out OFCOM will not allow for programmes rated 15 or above to be screened after the watershed.

As some people pointed out at the kids weren't exposed to a couple of blokes punching each other in the face at the crack of dawn.

In a statement, Bellator company president Scott Coker said that they are going to work on any scheduling issues with the UK for future events.

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.

Still, at least people found ways to make unlikely Peppa Pig/MMA crossover jokes.

HT Daily Dot

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