Dana White claims UFC 229 is trending to sell 2.5 million pay-per-views
It’s no secret that UFC 229, which will be headlined by a lightweight title fight between undefeated champion Khabib Nurmagomedov and former two-division champion Conor McGregor, is going to be big. According to UFC President Dana White, however, it’s trending to be the biggest UFC pay-per-view ever by a huge margin.
“It’s massive,” White told ESPN this week (transcript via MMA Fighting). “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.”
White went on to discuss the UFC’s working relationship with Conor McGregor. Apparently, it’s a healthy relationship — barring a few issues.
“Conor works very well with us,” he said. “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.”
White added that he believes it’s Conor McGregor’s love of fighting — not his love of money — that has pulled 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.”
UFC 229 goes down on October 6 inside the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. How many PPVs do you think the card will sell?
This article first appeared on BJPENN.COM on 9/20/2018.
This article appeared first on BJPENN.COM
Topics:
Conor McGregor Dana White UFC 229
