When the UFC 189 was first announced Dana White was aiming for 1 million pay-per-view buys for what he believed would be the biggest fight of year between Jose Aldo and Conor McGregor, and while Chad Mendes eventually had to step in as a late replacement the word is that they still managed to meet their target.
On McGregor’s biography on the UFC’s official site it now reads that, “the fight attracted a record 16,019 fans to the MGM Grand Garden Arena, plus a $7.2-million live gate and 1 million pay per view buys, proving McGregor’s sizeable drawing power.”
Meanwhile, in a new interview McGregor himself also repeats that claim.
“The previous fight was the biggest event in UFC history,” McGregor told MMAjunkie. “$7.2 million gate, cleared 1 million pay-per-view buys, it slots very high on the list of highest MGM (Grand Garden Arena) gates just below Mike Tyson and Juan Manuel Marquez. It also beat that pay-per-view number. So that was a tremendous event and one of the biggest, if not the biggest in history.”
If it did indeed break the 1 million PPV barrier then it’s an impressive achievement indeed – remarkable in fact given that McGregor has only been in the UFC for a little over two years and had just five fights in the Octagon prior to UFC 189.
It would put the event in the top 10 best selling UFC’s pay-per-view events of all time, putting it alongside the likes of UFC 148: Silva Vs Sonnen II, UFC 91: Lesnar Vs Couture, UFC 92: Griffin Vs Evans and UFC 121: Lesnar Vs Velasquez which also raked in around one million buys, though it still falls short of the alll-time record for 1.6 million buys set at UFC 100: Lesnar Vs Mir II.
Now everyone is looking ahead to McGregor and Aldo final meeting to unify the featherweight title with reports suggesting that it’ll probably take place in December at the 100,000 seater Dallas Cowboys stadium, and the buy rate for that show would almost certainly be astronomical.
