Return Of GSP Draws 700K PPV Buys

[No More Sorrow]

The return of UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre to the Octagon has reportedly pulled in 680,000 to 700,000 pay-per-views buys for this months UFC 154 event in Montreal. St-Pierre unified the welterweight title by defeating interim champ Carlos Condit in the main event of UFC 154 at the Bell Centre.
The numbers are slightly lower than GSP’s usual buy rate of 800,000 but officials with the promotion will certainly be happy with the numbers.
News of the PPV buys comes via Dave Meltzer at the Wrestling Observer newsletter (subscription required) via BloodyElbow.com.

Preliminary estimates for UFC 154 were 680,000 to 700,000 buys, with huge numbers in Canada, really strong in places like Saskatoon and Edmonton. It’s in line or just below the Jon Jones vs. Rashad Evans numbers from earlier this year, so probably third for the year overall. It’s lower than what GSP has been doing the last few years, but overall business is down from 2010 and Carlos Condit isn’t in the league with Dan Hardy and Josh Koscheck when it came to building a grudge and marketing a fight, not that he did badly. Plus, the pub wasn’t there. With Hardy, his Countdown shows on Spike were a lot bigger deal. With Koscheck, you had the entire season of TUF building the fight.
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In contrast to the past two PPV events, UFC 153 pulled in between 340,000 – 410,000 buys featuring a light heavyweight bout between Anderson Silva vs. Stephan Bonnar, while UFC 152 did an estimated 450,000 buys and had 205-lbs champ Jon Jones defend his title against Vitor Belfort.

Those are damn good numbers. Dana White recently came out and said the King of PPV's is back, well with those number he wasn't lying.

 

[Troy]

Great numbers but no real surprise. This is the first fight back for him after 19 months, I am sure that if Jones or Silva were out for that long their return would bring in similar numbers.

 

[Slim]

Those are good numbers but def coulda been much better if there was some publicity or Condit did something other than sit on his butt for like a year. But still... 700,000 buys is real good.

 

[Deezy]

Imagine if GSP had an opponent with name value like Diaz.

Millbo in the making.