Dana White likes to talk about MMA being the fastest rising sport in the world and how it is still growing, but PPV numbers seem to be saying otherwise as fans are beginning to pick and choose which events they watch now as opposed to just buying everything with the UFC name on it. According to Dave Meltzer, Anderson Silva vs. Chris Weidman is expected to be at around the 550,000 PPV buy mark, which falls under estimates, but is in line with Chael Sonnen vs. Jon Jones for the second-highest PPV buys of the year.
The first-highest of the year goes to GSP vs. Nick Diaz with 950,000 buys showing that GSP can draw pretty well and that Nick Diaz really is as important as we all think him to be. It is also interesting to note that Dan Henderson vs. Rashad Evans did a pretty awful number at 150,000 buys, which is well, well under what was expected. The floor for UFC PPVs used to be around 250,000 – 300,000, but it appears that fans aren’t just buying everything anymore.