Dana White and his cronies are trumping up UFC 91: Couture vs. Lesnar as the biggest PPV event the company has put together. They believe that Couture's popularity and Lesnar's incredible marketability will conspire to get them their largest PPV buy rate ever. The largest PPV the UFC has put together up until now was UFC 66, Liddell vs. Ortiz, which had a massive 1.05-million PPV buys and generated a live gate over $5-million. That event was also held at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. Randy Couture's return to the UFC for a title fight against Tim Sylvia drew 534,000 PPV buys but the UFC had significantly less buys when Couture fought Gabriel Gonzaga months later. Brock Lesnar's UFC debut brought them over 650,000 PPV buys, making it one of the UFC's most successful PPV's. The buyrate for UFC 87: St. Pierre vs. Fitch was also large with over 625,000 buys. Is White's prediction accurate?
I don't think it will. Randy has been out of the limelight and from some damn reason, Ortiz puts butts in the seats unlike anyone else. I think UFC 91 will do big guys, but not a record high. If they had Liddell or Rampage on the card, then it'd have some more drawing power.
I won't be buying it. I'll be in Indian River, Michigan for deer hunting season :] Maybe instead of using a rifle, I'll slap on a RNC on a big 8 pointer.
Its true that the rest of the card is mediocre. They are putting everything into the Couture/Lesnar basket. Imagine if one of them get injured--it could be one of the worst cards in the last few years.
I voted yes. But looking at the rest of the card afterwards I am thinking no. I think the next 3 ppv cards all have a chance to beat it though, the NYE card is insane, GSP vs BJ Penn is going to be insane.
