The UFC's 5 best-selling pay-per-views of the decade (2010-2019)
The UFC exploded in popularity during the last decade – 2005 to be exact – when the airing of The Ultimate Fighter on Spike TV sent the promotion from an underground phenomenon directly into the mainstream eye, but the decade between 2010 and 2019 has seen even further growth.
The UFC has moved from Spike TV to the Fox network and now to the ESPN network, and millions of fans have been converted to the sport of MMA in the process. Most notably, the promotion was able to sell an insane amount of pay-per-views over the last ten years – to the point where 4 of the 5 best-selling of all time have taken place since the beginning of 2010.
Here are the UFC’s 5 best-selling pay-per-views of the decade (2010-2019).
#5 UFC 194: Aldo vs McGregor – 12th December, 2015 – 1,200,000 buys
UFC 194 was expected at the time to become the UFC’s best-selling pay-per-view of all time, but in the end, it fell slightly short of that mark, drawing an estimated 1,200,000 buys compared to UFC 100’s 1,300,000 buys in 2009.
The show was the first real display of the drawing power of Conor McGregor, as the Irishman challenged – and defeated – Jose Aldo for the UFC Featherweight title in the main event, elevating himself to super-stardom with an incredible 13-second knockout of the Brazilian, who hadn’t lost a fight in over a decade.
The UFC was treating the show as a big one from the off, and so the fans were given another title fight on the undercard, as Luke Rockhold dethroned Chris Weidman for the UFC Middleweight title, and also got to see a Middleweight title eliminator between Yoel Romero and Ronaldo ‘Jacare’ Souza.
UFC 194 didn’t quite top the quality of the previous show that McGregor headlined – the phenomenal UFC 189 – but the millions of fans who watched definitely wouldn’t have been disappointed.