The Memorial Day Weekend pay per view has become a big yearly show for the UFC. They originally wanted Mir and Lesnar on this show, which would have been huge. Then Mir’s injury delayed things, and they tried to do Rampage and Rashad, but Rampage was injured, so they went with their third choice, Lyoto Machida vs. Rashad Evans.
Internally the feeling at UFC is that Evans vs. Machida is a baseline title fight. In other words, it’s not a draw at all beyond the hardcore fans according to their own research. However, the light heavyweight title is a strong title, it’s been 5 weeks since the last show, it’s a holiday weekend, and the semi-main event is very appealing to the 1.2-1.5 million casual fans that have watched The Ultimate Fighter for years.
Last year’s May show did 475,000 buys with Penn-Sherk, Ortiz’s last fight, and Wanderlei Silva third from the top. That is a stronger card on paper than this one, but the UFC is on a hot streak of late. They did 625,000 buys at UFC 97, though I don’t think there will be any spillover effect due to Anderson Silva’s performance. Machida and Rashad alone for the title is probably a 350 show, but Serra and Hughes will add buys on top of that.
A lot depends on the countdown show, but Dana has been all over the press, and I’m guessing the video game will give them an extra push too. It’s hard to say without seeing the countdown show, but I’m guessing they will do between 475,000 and 500,000 buys.
Update: One reader below pointed out something I forgot about, the 10 dollar coupon toward a UFC PPV for those that buy the new game from Best Buy. Will this make a huge difference? Probably not, but I don’t know how many games they sold to people that weren’t going to buy anyway. It could be a factor though.