OU

I don't know if it will translate to PPV buys but the FX portion got the highest rating in it's history. 1.9 million. I really think it was a big deal here in the states with Super Bowl weekend. Seemed like everyone knew about the card. This card even beat the Vitor vs Bisping card and this was the prelims and not the main card.
http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2013/2/6/...medium=twitter

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Harness

Casual fans in the UK know who Lesnar and "that Silva guy". It's pretty annoying when you're talking to somebody about it and they start saying stuff like, "DIDN'T KIMBO SLICE FIGHT IN THE UFC?!?!". Basically, UK casual's suck.

OU

American casuals suck as well, beleive me. But this is a known weekend for MMA and there was no other major sporting event that was on that night. We had no football the week before and it seemed like people were ready for some kind of event. That is why I think this event will do so well. I probably over shot it with my 800K+ but I still think it's over 600K. But American causal fans can't even tell you the name of the guys they just saw fight. It's pathetic. They could have seen a guy fight 5 times and still have no memory of who he is.

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Purgetheweak

Canadian casual fans pretty much only know who GSP is. Most of them think he's the only Canadian fighter.

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OU

No respect for The Crow? That's a shame. Hard not to be a fan of that guy.

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The Best Around

I'd say 450K or so. If the card was meh with Aldo/Edgar as the main event, I'd predict around 225K. Both are HORRIBLE draws; it's just fact at this point that nothing below WW outside of BJ Penn can draw money. But because there was a title fight, the Overeem fight, and Rashad fight, I think around 400-450K is realistic.

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The Best Around

Rashad IS a draw. I don't like him, but he's a top draw. His fight against Rampage did the biggest number in UFC history where there was no title at stake. Bones's biggest draw by far was against Rashad with a crappy card (even when Bones had Mir/Nog & Tito/Lil Nog on the Bones/Machida card). Rashad's fights against Chuck, Forrest (stacked card), and Machida all did 500K+.

I would argue that out of current fighters, GSP is the biggest draw, followed by Rashad and then Silva. Technically Sonnen is a top draw in terms of main events because he's had 2 main events, and they've done around 600K + 900K buys respectively. But that was the Sonnen/Silva dynamic and the circumstance; otherwise nothing he has done has proven that he's a ratings or PPV buys generator.

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zarny

Highly unlikely.

The UFC's ppv numbers for pretty much every card that isn't headlined by GSP or Lesnar is ~ 350K.

Every now and then a ppv headlined by Anderson, Rashad or Jones gets close to 500K but I don't expect UFC 156 to get there.

osmium

Anderson and Bones draw really well when the public believes their opponent has a shot and will usually do pretty good to good with any legitimate challenger. I don't think the latter would apply to Rashad and Chael as champs they don't have an aura about them. GSP just gets ridiculous numbers in canada he really isn't more or that much more popular than Bones and Anderson in the US.

OU

He has been a name for a long time. I think there are still way more GSP fans in America then there are Bones fans. Anderson is probably the most popular fighter in the US still. But both GSP and Anderson have longevity on their side. They have been at the top for pretty much the entire post TUF boom.

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