...OH, ONE MORE THING - PLEASE BOOKMARK US & VISIT DAILY!
By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
Early pay-per-view buy estimates for UFC 181 have the show as the second biggest pay-per-view of 2014, according to Dave Meltzer in the latest edition of The Wrestling Observer (subscription required).
Per Meltzer, early estimates have the show drawing around 380,000 buys, which trails only UFC 175 from July, which brought in 540,000 buys for the Chris Weidman vs. Lyoto Machida and Ronda Rousey vs. Alexis Davis double headliner. Like that show, the UFC 181 event featured two title fights in Johny Hendricks vs. Robbie Lawler II and Anthony Pettis vs. Gilbert Melendez.
Further, the numbers are ranging potentially higher than that, as Meltzer says cable industry estimate are double the range of UFC 180 from last month, expected to have drawn between 185,000 and 200,000 buys.
UFC 181 drew higher than the first Hendricks-Lawler bout, which was estimated around 300,000 buys in March. That could be a reason why the UFC is looking at a third fight between the two rather than a Lawler-Rory MacDonald rematch next.
In other recent estimates, Meltzer reports that UFC 178 in September - with a strong card but a replacement headliner in Demetrious Johnson and Chris Cariaso - brought around 205,000 buys, while UFC 179 "Aldo vs. Mendes II" is estimated between 160,000 and 200,000 buys.
Penick's Analysis: The numbers are in line with expectations; higher than most, lower than some, but given the state of the UFC's pay-per-view business in 2014, it's a very good number. It's what the UFC does from here into the new year that becomes the concern now. UFC 182 with Jon Jones vs. Daniel Cormier should be a big seller; it's probably not going to be as big as UFC 178 would have been with them fresh off the brawl in August, but it should still be big. UFC 183 is another, coming on a typically solid pay-per-view weekend for the UFC, and featuring the returns of Anderson Silva and Nick Diaz. Add in two more title fights for UFC 184, and that three run stretch should be bigger than most of 2014, but it's hard to say with how much fans have turned off of buying pay-per-views this year whether they'll be able to get a large segment of them back for any of these events in particular.
DON'T GO YET... WE SUGGEST THESE MMATORCH ARTICLES, TOO!
Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
STAFF COLUMNISTS: Shawn Ennis - Jason Amadi
Frank Hyden - Rich Hansen
Chris Park - Matt Pelkey
Interested in joining MMATorch's writing team? Send idea for a theme to your column (for Specialist section) or area of interest (i.e. TV Reporter) along with a sample of writing to mmatorch@gmail.com.
