(There is nothing wrong with your monitor. Jon Jones is actually grabbing Daniel Cormier’s shoulder from like eight feet away. Esther Lin/MMAFighting)
According to MMAFighting’s Dave Meltzer, UFC 182: Jones vs. Cormier did between 740,000 and 820,000 pay-per-view buys, based on early cable estimates. That’s the highest PPV buyrate for a UFC card since UFC 168: Weidman vs. Silva cracked one million buys in December 2013.
Perhaps more importantly, UFC 182′s buyrate represents the most successful showing in Jon Jones‘s career. Previously, the light-heavyweight champion’s best number was the 700k buys hauled in by UFC 145, where Jones faced off against training-partner-turned-rival Rashad Evans. So yeah, it helps when the fighters hate each other.
With Jones’s other recent PPVs producing underwhelming numbers — 300k+ buys for his UFC 165 fight against Alexander Gustafsson, about 350k for his UFC 172 fight against Glover Teixeira — it seemed that UFC fans weren’t embracing him as a star. But a strong number for UFC 182 proves that they’ll still tune in for the right matchup. And with Bones’s reputation firmly in the toilet, maybe the UFC fanbase will keep showing up in the hopes that he’ll get his ass kicked.
The UFC’s 2015 PPV business is off to a fast start, thanks to Jones vs. Cormier. Any guesses on how UFC 183: Silva vs. Diaz will compare to it later this month?