UFC
UFC 144 early pay-per-view estimates reportedly at an impressive 375,000 buys
Feb 29, 2012 - 9:55:02 PM

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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

Last weekend's UFC 144 card did much better than expected on pay-per-view, as Dave Meltzer reports in the latest edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter (subscription required) that early estimates for the show have it coming in around 375,000 buys.

That's slightly down from the UFC 143 card earlier in the month, but when you compare it to other international events from recent years, as well as the cards Edgar had headlined previously, this has to be considered a very, very good number.

Edgar's last two fights with Gray Maynard, despite being incredible fights, drew just 225,000 buys (UFC 136) and 270,000 buys (UFC 125). His performances in those fights may have had something to do with the success of this event, though the fact that Rampage Jackson was on the card probably didn't hurt, either.

Still, look at what the UFC has done with international cards in the last couple of years: the two events in Brazil in the last six months, UFC 134 and UFC 142, drew 335,000 and 225,000 buys, respectively; and UFC 134 had Anderson Silva on top! The last two Australia events, UFC 110 and UFC 127, drew 240,000 and 260,000, respectively. In fact, the only internationally hosted UFC pay-per-view event to perform better than this card - should this number hold up - was the UFC 112 card in Abu Dhabi, which drew 500,000 viewers with both Anderson Silva and B.J. Penn headlining the event.

Penick's Analysis: That's a much higher number than I thought they'd get to considering the fact that Edgar hadn't caught on completely, not to mention the generally poor performance of international events for the UFC on pay-per-view. This is a great number, and this card in Japan ended up being quite an event for them overall. It was a sell out, did great on pay-per-view, and it was an excellent fight card to boot. The UFC has to be very happy with this number.