The UFC heavyweight championship is still big business. The UFC 146 headlining title match pitting champ Junior dos Santos against challenger Frank Mir drew a gate of $3,428,775 to the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, the Nevada state athletic commission reported on Wednesday.
That total came on the strength of 11,428 tickets sold, for an average price of just over $300 per seat.
The event fell short of a sellout, however.
Total attendance was 14,674, with 3,246 tickets given away. Another 276 went unsold.
Still, the $3.2 million-plus gate was a tick higher than even last December’s UFC 141, which was headlined by Brock Lesnar and Alistair Overeem. That event drew $3.1 million. In fact, UFC 146 was the highest-grossing UFC heavyweight championship match since Lesnar defended the belt at UFC 100, an event that featured two title bouts and drew over $5.1 million at the box office.
dos Santos successfully defended his belt for the first time in the UFC 146 main event, matching his pre-fight prediction by stopping Mir in a second-TKO.