Report: UFC 231 early estimates at 240,000-300,000 PPV buys

Max Holloway’s dominant featherweight title defense vs. Brian Ortega looks to be an improvement from his previous UFC pay-per-view main events.

The UFC has a huge year-end pay-per-view right around the corner with Jon Jones vs. Alexander Gustafsson 2 topping next Saturday’s UFC 232 card, but earlier this month the promotion held UFC 231 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The December 8th show sold out Scotiabank Arena and produced a $2.4 million gate, but how did it fare in terms of PPV buys?

According to industry insider Dave Meltzer, UFC 231’s early track is somewhere in the range of 240,000-300,000 buys. The main event was a featherweight title bout between Max Holloway and Brian Ortega, with Holloway defending his belt successfully by fourth-round TKO.

Even if this tops out at 240,000 buys, it would still be Holloway’s best-selling PPV out of four main event. His two fights with Jose Aldo did 200,000 and 230,000 buys for UFC 212 and 218, respectively. Against Anthony Pettis, albeit for an interim belt, UFC 206 only did 150,000 buys, and the original main event was supposed to be Daniel Cormier vs. Anthony Johnson 2.

In terms of the 2018 PPV landscape, UFC 231 estimates would put it in the general direction of UFC 225 (250,000 buys), 227 (300,000 buys), and 230 (250,000 buys). The upward trend for Holloway pay-per-views may be a good sign that he’s steadily becoming a major star, and it’ll be interesting to see what fights — perhaps more specifically, what weight class — awaits him in 2019.