Last Saturday, my Caged In colleague Jonathan Snowden and I were sitting in the press box watching as Jon Jones made his long walk to the cage to defend his title against Rashad Evans. After watching the fans respond to Jones all week, I couldn’t help but note that Jones—not Georges St-Pierre, Anderson Silva or Brock Lesnar—might be the guy to become the first true mainstream superstar to emerge from mixed martial arts.
Sure, Lesnar was a superstar. He was the biggest pay-per-view draw in the entire sport, far surpassing anything St-Pierre or Silva have ever accomplished on their own. But he still didn’t penetrate the mass market in the way that Jones could potentially do.
Yeah, we’re still talking about potential. But the potential is certainly there, and that’s more than you can say for just about everyone else on the UFC roster. Jones can become a transcendent superstar, especially if one those those vaunted deals with Nike or Reebok finally emerge later this year.
And with every passing fight, fans are gaining more and more interesting in watching Bones do his thing in the cage. Per Dave Meltzer’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter, UFC 145 did in the neighborhood of 700,000 pay per view buys:
But even with no crowd favorite, the story was strong enough that early estimates of PPV numbers have topped 700,000 buys, by far the largest of Jones’ career. The number was big for UFC, because they had not established a new young star who was a major consistent draw since the rise of Brock Lesnar, now retired, and Georges St. Pierre, out for most of the year.
The UFC doesn’t do numbers above 500,000 all that often any more, and it’s even more rare that they approach the 700,000 mark. So this is a big deal, and it’s proof that Jon Jones is resonating with the public in a way that few home-grown UFC stars have in a long, long time.
Sure, the fans boo Jones heavily at weigh-ins and at the actual fights in the arena. But I’m not sure those feelings translate to the general public. In fact, I’d wager they don’t. The fans who show up at UFC events—especially weigh-ins, which often require you to either be out of work or to skip your job for an afternoon—are the hardcore ones. They’re the ones who follow the sport closely on the internet, and they’re the fans who develop an opinion on Jones based on the opinions of others.
Those fans will likely continue to boo Jones, but it doesn’t matter. He’s making an impact on the sport, and the pay-per-view numbers prove it. Those numbers will only get bigger and bigger as Jones continues to dominate opponents.
And can you imagine what kind of interest he’ll draw when he eventually moves to heavyweight and challenges for that championship? It could very well surpass the record-setting 1.75 million done by Brock Lesnar at UFC 100.
In the end, it doesn’t matter if you like him or if you think he’s too arrogant. Jon Jones is becoming a legitimate superstar, and that’s a good thing for the sport.
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