Report: UFC 147 draws 16,643 live fans and 20 million on Brazilian TV

Remember all that bitching and moaning mixed martial arts (MMA) fans were doing about the quality of recent pay-per-view (PPV) fight cards?

Must be a U.S. thing.

That's because Ultimate Fighting Championship hit a home run grand slam with its UFC 147: "Silva vs. Franklin 2" event last Saturday night (June 23, 2012), which emanated from the Jornalista Felipe Drumond Stadium in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.

Headlined by a main event pitting hometown hero Wanderlei Silva against former UFC Middleweight Champion Rich Franklin, UFC 147 reportedly drew 16,643 live fans and over 20 million viewers on Brazilian television.

Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen.

That's according to Eduardo Ferreira, editor of Brazil's Tatame.com, who noted that "UFC 147 surpassed Ronaldinho debut in BH [and] hit 17 points (20 million) on Rede Globo."

Not too shabby.

It's still three million less than the 23,000,000 that tuned in to see UFC 142: "Aldo vs. Mendes" earlier this year from the HSBC Arena in Rio de Janeiro, but hey, anything with six zeroes has to be considered awesome.

For a detailed breakdown of the Wanderlei Silva vs. Rich Franklin headliner click here and for complete UFC 147 results and blow-by-blow coverage of all the night's action click here.