One-million, six-hundred thousand.
That is, in terms of pure numbers, the holy grail of UFC pay-per-view numbers. Three years ago, it was the buyrate of UFC 100, the highest selling UFC PPV ever.
Not to be outdone, almost a year later to the day, UFC 116 brought about 1,160,000 PPV buys, the most ever by a card with one championship match on it (UFC 100 featured two championship matches).
When Chael Sonnen and Anderson Silva met for the first time in August of 2010, their PPV drew 600,000 buys. This was before their rivalry REALLY took off like it has ever since the re-match was announced.
That was a fight card that featured Jon Fitch and Thiago Alves as the co-main event. This card features far more star-power with Tito Ortiz and Forrest Griffin as the co-main event.
There might not be a greater rivalry in UFC, if not all of MMA, history than Silva-Sonnen. Their hatred for one another has grown to rival that of Red Sox-Yankees, North Carolina-Duke basketball, etc. And history has shown that fans love a great rivalry.
After UFC 116, the next-most bought PPV of 2010 was UFC 114, headlined by Quinton “Rampage” Jackson and Rashad Evans, who had become bitter rivals stemming from the heels of their coaching gig on season 10 of The Ultimate Fighter.
That PPV also featured Michael Bisping and Dan Miller in the co-main event, far below the excitement of Griffin-Ortiz III.
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