There probably isn't a huge crossover between MMA fans and Peppa Pig fans. That should be quite obvious, of course, but for Channel Five...well, apparently it isn't.
They announced with some fanfare that they had secured the rights to show Bellator MMA just last week, in time for the big fight between MMA legends Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson and Wanderlei Silva, as well as a title fight between Gegard Mousasi and Rory MacDonald.
Yet, moments before the main event of Bellator 206 in San Jose, California, Channel Five's coverage broke...to be replaced by Peppa Pig.
With the fight taking place on the West Coast of America, it was always going to be a late one for UK based fight fans, but Channel Five clearly saw fit to replace the martial arts with kid's TV at the scheduled time of 6am.
Admittedly, it probably doesn't look good for a toddler getting up in time for Sunday morning cartoons to instead be met with two brutes knocking shades of shite out of each other, but for the majority who had enjoyed almost an entire event of MMA, it was annoying to say the least.
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"Pathetic UK TV Channel 5 stay up all night then goes off as the main even Bellator 206 starts for Peppa Pig. WTF? W***ers," wrote one fan.
Another wrote: "Channel 5 has just cut away from the Bellator main event for f***** Peppa Pig."
One of them actually foresaw what might happen, tweeting: "Slightly concerning that Channel 5 only has this Bellator event scheduled on the planner until 5am! Gonna be pissed if it shuts off before I get to see the co-mains."
Ironically, Bellator and Channel Five are owned by the same company, Viacom, so they've really only themselves to blame for the enraged fans.
MMA journalists criticised the slow pace of the Bellator show, which forced it to overrun its time-slot and thus be replaced by our gal Peppa.
"As was a point of issue for fans on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, the pacing of Bellator 206's main card wasn't exactly warp speed," wrote Mookie Alexander for Bloody Elbow.
"In fact, despite five finishes out of six fights, the main event between Gegard Mousasi and Rory MacDonald ended well past 1 AM ET. Channel 5 viewers never saw Mousasi's TKO finish of MacDonald, because Bellator ran over the three-hour time-slot and viewers were soon 'treated' to an episode of the children's television program, Peppa Pig." And not a black eye in sight.
Topics: MMA