Report: CM Punk appears to have roughly doubled PPV buys

The hardcore fanbase and no small number of fighters were not impressed when it was announced that one stripe white belt Phil ‘CM Punk’ Brooks made $500,000 in losing to Mickey Gall. That is 17 times more money than Gall made, 20 times more than JoJo Calderwood. It’s more than anyone made on the previous UFC. Or the UFC before that.

CM Punk fought like an old, not great athlete, who had trained in a sport he has no notable aptitude for, for 18 months, with surgery in the middle of it. Punk’s plan to sign a contract with the highest professional league in the world, and then start training in that sport, was a disaster. He stunk up the Octagon with his performance and embarrassed both himself and the UFC.

There is a price to be paid for entering the Octagon. It takes years upon years upon years of hard work. And it takes talent. CM Punk gave no indication what so ever of either, either in the Octagon, or in all the tapes made of his training. There are not good words for people who have something they didn’t pay for.

CM Punk did not deserve to be there. That said, he emphatically deserved the $500,000.

$500,000 is equalled by roughly 17,000 pay per view television buys. Early indications are, he may have doubled the PPV buys.

https://twitter.com/marc_raimondi/status/775028069446791169

UFC 183: Silva vs. Diaz was around 650,000 PPV buys, and UFC 182: Jones vs. Cormier was around 800,000 PPV buys, so Raimondi is indicating that UFC 203 is in the perhaps 650-800,000 range.

Stipe Miocic vs. Fabricio Werdum at UFC 198 got 350,000 pay per view buys, and it had Vitor Belfort and Cris Cyborg on it. CM Punk is thus apparently a pay per view draw on the level of Jon Jones, below Conor McGregor, Brock Lesnar, and Ronda Rousey, but enormously far ahead of the rest of the card. That’s why he made $500,000.

A thing is worth what someone will pay for it, and a lot of people will pay to see if CM Punk can really fight. That said, now that they know he can’t fight, perhaps they won’t pay to see it again.

Punk’s contract with the UFC made have included points on the pay per view buys, which could push his compensation into the millions. He earned it, literally. He did not deserve to be in the Octagon. But he made the company millions and deserves significant compensation for it.

The UFC is now presented with a conundrum. Under UFC president Dana White, mixed martial arts was transformed from spectacle to sport, with extraordinary results. CM Punk is a spectacle. But a spectacle that perhaps brought the company maybe $10,000,000.

Punk does not deserve to be on the main card. He does not deserve to be on the FS1 undercard. He does not deserve to be on the UFC Fight Pass prelims. He does not deserve to be on a professional card anywhere. He could conceivably be on a TUF, but those guys are good, and would take him out of there the very first fight.

Based on his performance, and how he looks on training footage, CM Punk is not good at mixed martial arts. He gives every indication of being the average beginner in the gym, with a year or so of training.

But the only way it is worth having him in the UFC at all is on the main card of a PPV. Is there any fighter on Earth that he could face that would make it sport not spectacle to put him on a PPV main card?

It’s a good question, with millions at stake.