MMA Mania reports that Dana White estimates UFC 148 on July 7th to hit “UFC 100” levels including 1 million PPV buys. It appears that The Spider is doing his part with some uncharacteristic strong trash talk for the challenger.
Payout Perspective:
The UFC has not hit 1 million PPV buys since Brock Lesnar lost the Heavyweight title to Cain Velasquez at UFC 121 on October 21, 2010. For those wondering, UFC 100 received 1.6 million buys on July 11, 2009.
The first Silva-Sonnen bout at UFC 117 in Oakland received 600 PPV buys. If you recall, Sonnen did most of the talking in hyping the fight as Silva was coming off of an embarrassing title defense in Abu Dhabi.
It seems like we’re getting a huge push for UFC 148 as this PPV may be the only one currently set that may hit 1M PPV buys. The UFC may get another shot with Jones-Hendo on September 1st but it happens Labor Day weekend and no other fights of note have been set. Certainly for 148, Silva’s trash talk should spur the venom between the two. As a result, many fans will definitely be interested in tuning in.
Chael doesn’t seem to be going full ball this time so, I’m guessing 750k buys.
Hearing Silva’s comments gave me goosebumps. The greatest fighter in the sport today against his toughest challenger, and he’s uncharacteristically angry. This is a PPV I’m definitely not missing.
Man, I knew Silva wasn’t a big PPV draw, but 600 PPV buys is atrocious!!
I think fights like UFC 126 show that Silva is a draw, but only when people think he’s going to be challenged and is going up against another solid name.
With the way the first fight went, people are going to want to tune in to see if this is when the 6 year reign finally ends, or if Silva can shut Sonnen up once and for all.
I’ll believe it when I see it. I think the saturation prevents the necessary anticipation from building that used to ensure huge buyrates. Jones vs Evans was a much bigger fight than Evans vs Jackson, yet fell far short of those numbers with the same amount of hype (the airing of TUF 10 was FAR removed from UFC 114) and an arguably better back-story. As a hardcore fan, it’s been difficult to build up the amount of anticipation for UFC 148 that the event warrants because there’s just not enough time to process the last two events, and THEN start really anticipating the next one.
No chance this gets 1 million buys.
And if it does break $1 Million, Dana will base jump off the MGM grand!!!