UFC
The UFC 229 pay-per-view buy numbers and estimates are coming in for the UFC lightweight championship bout between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Conor McGregor at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on Oct. 6. UFC president Dana White expressed his belief that the pay-per-view could be trending to 3 million buys leading up to the fight, but it ultimately fell short of that number.
Despite falling short of the 3 million buy prediction, UFC 229 is smashing previous UFC records according to the early estimates.
According to Dave Meltzer of MMAFighting.com, Khabib vs. McGregor is currently being estimated at just under 2.4 million buys. Meltzer says “the figures break down at around 1.9 million on traditional pay-per-view and 470,000 to 480,000 via streaming pay-per-view.”
The 2.4 million buys would smash the previous UFC record of 1.5 million buys which was set at UFC 202 for the rematch between McGregor and Nate Diaz.
To put the success of 229 into perspective, UFC 228 — which was headlined by a welterweight title fight between Tyron Woodley and Darren Till — did an estimated 130,000 buys.
Nurmagomedov capped off UFC 229 with a fourth-round submission win over McGregor to retain his title, before jumping into the crowd to attack McGregor teammate Dillon Danis which sparked a post-fight melee in and out of the cage.
With his win, Khabib advanced to 27-0 in his professional career. His 27 consecutive wins gives him the longest winning streak in all of mixed martial arts. Khabib first won the vacant lightweight championship on April 7, 2018 at UFC 223 when he scored a dominant decision win over Al Iaquinta in Brooklyn, New York. He became the first Russian to win a UFC title. The submission victory over McGregor was his first title defense.
McGregor, meanwhile, falls to 21-4 in his professional career and has suffered his second submission loss in four outings. All four of McGregor’s losses have come by way of submission, with three of the four via rear-naked choke. In his two most recent wins, McGregor earned a majority decision win over Nate Diaz and a TKO victory over Eddie Alvarez to claim the UFC lightweight championship which he was ultimately stripped of when he took a hiatus from MMA to enter the boxing ring against Floyd Mayweather.
