UFC’s return to pay-per-view was a major success.
Last weekend, the world witnessed Justin Gaethje beat Tony Ferugson to become the new UFC Interim Lightweight Champion and Henry Cejudo retire after a successful Bantamweight title defense against Dominick Cruz.
According to John Ourand of the Sports Business Journal, the mega pay-per-view drew nearly 700,000 buys. Dana White never speaks on the exact numbers of UFC shows; however, the UFC President revealed on Yahoo Sports that the pre-order greatly outdrew UFC 248, which featured Israel Adesanya vs. Yoel Romero for the UFC Middleweight title and Zhang Weili vs. Joanna Jędrzejczyk for the UFC Women’s Strawweight belt.
Only UFC 246 – which was headlined with Donald Cerrone vs. Conor McGregor – was the show that reached greater buyrates as the pay-per-view reported pulled in over one million buys. However, it’s a far cry from the highest pay-per-view buys of UFC 229, which drew over two million. That night, Khabib Nurmagomedov defeated Conor McGregor for the Lightweight Championship.
We’ll see what happens at UFC 250 when Amanda Nunes defends the women’s featherweight title against Felicia Spencer.