UFC President Says UFC 229 Trending At 2.5 Million PPV Buys
It clearly shows that fight fans are super excited on former two-division champion Conor Mcgregor’s return to UFC Octagon, who’s going to challenge undefeated Khabib Nurmagomedov in the main headliner of October 6th UFC 229. UFC head honcho Dana white claims that this event is trending to surpass the promotion’s previously record-selling PPV UFC 196, by almost one million buys.
White appeared on ESPN’s ‘Get Up’ on Thursday morning before tonight’s presser, where he described a meeting between two superstars Mcgregor vs. Khabib as a massive one. (Via MMFighting)
“It’s massive,” White told ESPN. “There has been a lot of talk about this thing doing 2 million buys. We’re trending right now at 2.5 million buys so that’s how big this fight is. The biggest fight we’d ever done was Diaz vs. McGregor at almost 1.6 million pay-per-view buys. Then we did the Floyd Mayweather fight. And now this by far is the biggest fight and one of the biggest fights ever in combat sports to be honest with you.”
Of course, White’s job is to sell fights. On many occasion, he said whatever it demands to get that goal accomplished. Though, UFC 229 is legitimately one of the biggest bouts ever scheduled.
Despite Mcgregor’s recent outside the cage chaos and legal troubles, White said UFC and Conor McGregor’s working relationship is a healthy one— barring a few issues.
“Conor works very well with us. We work well with him. There’s certain things you have to deal with Conor McGregor but he’s worth it. For example, the New York thing. The fact he thought he could come here and have this beef with Khabib in the middle of New York City and the way that it was done that was obviously the craziest thing. Normal, typical stuff for Conor is showing up an hour late for press conferences,” he explained.
Dana White also added that it’s Mcgregor’s love for fighting not money that attracts him back to the Octagon.
“I said this might be the last time you see Conor McGregor when you make his kind of money,” he said. “He loves to fight. The reality is this — when you make a lot of money when you haven’t had money — you go out and buy a bunch of things, you take care of your family and do some fun stuff but it gets old real quick. It took Conor two years and here we are.”
What do you think how many PPVs this card will sell?
