The UFC went back to Brazil for UFC 153, which featured middleweight champion Anderson Silva moving back up to light heavyweight for a fight against The Ultimate Fighter alumni Stephan Bonnar. The co-main event had a heavyweight matchup between Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Dave Herman.
Many were saying that the main event was a complete mismatch, and the PPV numbers were expected to represent that. Not many expected that fans would tune in to see Bonnar almost certainly be handled.
The numbers are in, and it turns out that it all went better than expected.
In the UFC’s third trip back to Brazil in the modern UFC era, UFC 153 had the best PPV numbers yet. UFC 147 pulled in 140,000, UFC 142 pulled in 235,000, UFC 134 pulled in 335,000 buys and UFC 153 pulled in a total of 400,000.
The first trip to Brazil had Anderson Silva defend his title against Yushin Okami with a second-round TKO victory. The co-main event of that fight had Mauricio “Shogun” Rua face Forrest Griffin in a rematch of their first fight. Shogun won this time by first round KO.
UFC 142 had Jose Aldo defend his featherweight title against Chad Mendes with a first-round knockout. The co-main event was a catchweight fight between Vitor Belfort and Anthony Johnson. Belfort won by first-round submission.
UFC 147 was one of the weaker cards in modern UFC history, as the main event was Rich Franklin facing off against Wanderlei Silva at a 190-pound catchweight. Franklin won by unanimous decision.
The UFC is sure to go back to Brazil more and more, so this will only be the highest PPV in Brazil for a short time.
Tim McTiernan is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report. For the latest news on everything MMA, follow him on Twitter @TimMcTiernan.
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