UFC
UFC 143 "Diaz vs. Condit" early estimates in around 400K pay-per-view buys
Feb 8, 2012 - 10:30:21 PM UFC 143 "Diaz vs. Condit" early estimates in around 400K pay-per-view buys

DISCUSS ALL THIS IN OUR NEW MMATORCH FORUM

...OH, ONE MORE THING - PLEASE BOOKMARK US & VISIT DAILY!

By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

The UFC's Super Bowl weekend cards have typically garnered good buyrates on pay-per-view for the organization, but with the loss of Georges St-Pierre from last weekend's UFC 143 event, that wasn't likely to be the case with the replacement Nick Diaz vs. Carlos Condit bout.

Diaz's return to the UFC in October in the headlining bout of UFC 137 drew just 280,000 pay-per-view buys for his fight against B.J. Penn, part of a run of really poor buyrates for the organization. Condit, meanwhile, had never headlined a UFC pay-per-view event before, and only two of his five UFC fights had been on pay-per-view.

That's why it comes as a surprise that this pay-per-view on Saturday night was one of the best for the UFC's recent schedule for an event that didn't feature GSP, Brock Lesnar, Anderson Silva, or Jon Jones. According to Dave Meltzer in the latest edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter (subscription required), early estimates for Saturday's broadcast have it coming in around 400,000 pay-per-view buys. It would be the only card of the last year that reached the 400K mark without any of the aforementioned top draws.

Penick's Analysis: Considering the lack of drawing history on pay-per-view for both fighters, this is a really good number. The UFC has to hope that they can parlay that number into more interest in Condit as a challenger to GSP, but most were expecting Diaz to come out on top, so that could put a damper on things. With a Condit-Diaz rematch now not likely coming, it's possible that people may be turned off of Condit after his win, but his track record speaks for itself and he makes for a dangerous challenge for St-Pierre later this year.