UFC superstar Conor McGregor calls himself 'The Pay-Per-View Monster'
Conor McGregor is known for many things. Being humble about his own achievements and accomplishments is not one of them.
The Irishman knows the kind of eyeballs he draws whenever he is on the fight card of an event, and he did not shy away from taking pride in that on his latest social media post.
Conor McGregor: The pay-per-view monster
Conor McGregor posted a couple of pictures of him training, possibly to get into shape for the January 23 bout against Dustin Poirier. He called himself "The Pay Per View Monster", which is hardly an exaggeration on his part.
Conor McGregor not only headlined the UFC event with highest pay-per-view buy rate, but four out of the top five PPVs in UFC history feature 'The Notorious'.
When the long-drawn, much-anticipated feud between Conor McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov finally reached the Octagon at UFC 229, it went on to draw in a whopping 2.4 million pay-per-view buys, surpassing the previous highest figures of McGregor vs. Diaz 2.
In what is still the biggest selling PPV event in UFC by a huge margin, Conor McGregor faced Khabib Nurmagomedov and lost via fourth-round submission.
However, neither the loss nor his 15-month-long hiatus from the Octagon affected Conor McGregor's star power. it was proven on his return against Donald 'Cowboy' Cerrone at UFC 246 on January 18 this year, which sold over 1 million pay-per-view streams, the first ever live streaming event in history to do so.
The official UFC 246 numbers released by Disney CEO Bob Iger revealed that ESPN+ gained more than 500,000 new subscribers between December 2019 and January 18, who were just there to watch Conor McGregor make his UFC return.
Conor McGregor and pay-per-views: A never ending saga
Other than the Brock Lesnar vs. Frank Mir fight at UFC 100 which ranks at #4, all the other top 5 PPV buys in UFC features the Irishman.
In the second spot is McGregor's iconic rematch with Nate Diaz with 1.6 million pay-per-view buys, where he avenged his loss from a few months ago with a majority decision win. Their previous bout, now known as McGregor vs. Diaz 1, ranks at #3 with a little more than 1.317 million PPV buys.
Conor McGregor's Lightweight title fight with Eddie Alvarez at UFC 205, where he made history by becoming the first ever fighter to hold two UFC belts at the same time, is ranked at #5 with 1.3 million buys. The #6 ranked PPV with 1.2 million buys features McGregor as well, in his Featherweight Championship match against Jose Aldo.
However, all these figures appear pale in comparison to the numbers he had drawn in for his big-money boxing match against Floyd Mayweather. 'The Notorious' lost the match, but only after lasting ten whole rounds and bringing in a massive 4.3 million PPV buys - the second highest in the history of pay-per-view events overall, bested only by a dream boxing fight that was years in the making, Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao.