After a year away from Anaheim, the UFC has announced its return to the Honda Center.
As confirmed during Fuel TV’s UFC Tonight on Tuesday, UFC 157 will be taking place at the California venue on February 23. No fighters were confirmed for the card, although the UFC’s last event in Anaheim featured a heavyweight title fight between Junior dos Santos and Cain Velasquez.
Anaheim is a memorable location for the UFC, as the broadcast for its first network TV title fight averaged 5.7 million viewers with an 8.8 million peak.
UFC 157 will be the second pay-per-view event on Zuffa’s 2013 calendar, following UFC 156: Aldo vs. Edgar earlier that same month.
Historically, the UFC has seen diminishing returns on hosting events at the Honda Center, with UFC on Fox 1 in particular drawing a record-low attendance for the promotion.
Hence, the numbers for the Honda Center have been a bit spotty over the years.
UFC 121 has been the biggest draw for the Honda Center so far, with a heavyweight title fight between Brock Lesnar and Cain Velasquez drawing a near-sellout 14,856 attendees and a $2,237,000 live gate. In addition to stellar live-gate numbers, the PPV did over a million buys.
Adjusted for inflation, the highest grossing card would be UFC 59: Reality Check, which drew a crowd of 13,814 and $2,191,450 in ticket sales ($2,515,461 at a 2012 value).
Notably, that card also featured two UFC championship bouts featuring four of the company’s most prominent fighters: Andrei Arlovski vs. Tim Sylvia and Tito Ortiz vs. Forrest Griffin.
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