The UFC is a privately held company, and as such is not compelled to release publicly information like PPV buys. However, Dave Meltzer has for many, many years been the leader is estimating buys, and he says UFC 193 headlined by Ronda Rousey vs. Holly Holm, appears to have broken more than 1,000,000 buys.
The event in Melbourne, Australia also broke the audience record for the UFC, with 56,214
While the result of the fight opened up far more questions about her future, Ronda Rousey at UFC 193 established a mark that two years ago would have been thought of as unfathomable. Her title loss to Holly Holm not only drew more than 50,000 fans, but also topped 1 million pay-per-view buys.
No UFC event in history had broken both barriers, let alone by a woman’s fight.
Industry estimates have the Rousey vs. Holm bantamweight title change doing between 1 million and 1.1 million buys, with most estimates closer to the higher figure. It is expected to be among the four biggest UFC pay-per-view events in its history. Before Rousey, no combat sports pay-per-view event headlined by a woman had ever topped 125,000 buys.
The UFC does not release pay-per-view numbers for its fights, although CEO Lorenzo Fertitta told Yahoo Sports prior to UFC 194 taking place that the pay-per-view number would be the third-biggest in UFC history, and based on how it was tracking, could end up as the second-biggest.
Holm’s win led to, by far, the most public and media attention to a fight after the fact in company history. The strong belief is that if a rematch takes place, whether it’s at UFC 200 or later in 2016, that it would be the biggest pay-per-view event in company history. That’s one of the reasons the UFC is so adamant about it being Holm’s next fight, not wanting to risk almost a sure record setting event.
No UFC event held outside North America had ever topped 500,000 buys, even a show headlined by both Anderson Silva and B.J. Penn in title fights at the time they were two of UFC’s biggest stars.
