Meltzer: UFC 117 trending between 800K-1M pay-per-view buys

Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter is reporting in the newsletter's Aug. 16 edition (subscription required) that UFC 117, headlined by a middleweight championship bout between Anderson Silva and Chael Sonnen, currently is trending between 800,000 and 1 million pay-per-view buys.

Meltzer, though, expresses caution with the number.

It's too early for what I'd call reliable figures. Like UFC 116, there was a wide variation between systems, but the most preliminary estimates are between 800,000 and 1 million buys. Early trending patterns showed the fight doing similar numbers as Rashad Evans vs. Quinton Jackson, and that fight topped 1 million when all was said and done. There was the belief that like UFC 116, this would do close to record setting replay business based on the word of mouth. On Yahoo! Sports, the stories on the fight ended up doing 3 million viewers between the end of the fight and the next afternoon, a number only topped by UFC 100 and UFC 116.

If the show continues to trend this way, it is absolutely amazing. Up to UFC 117, of the eight shows headlined by Anderson Silva, only two, UFC 97, which also featured Chuck Liddell, and UFC 112, which also featured BJ Penn, did more than 500,000 buys.

This number is staggering and should provide a valuable lesson for all mixed martial artists.

More Meltzer:

As far as weak business was concerned, the big question just before the show started that afternoon in Oakland was has there ever been anyone who has taken a fight that nobody cared about, and through interview after interview, built it into a major fight? By that point everyone knew the show was going to do above average business. There are guys in pro wrestling, MMA and boxing who have made big fights bigger. Some guys have made so-so fights somewhat interesting. But nobody was able to come up with another example of someone who had never headlined, had never been a draw, had a mediocre record, and was going into a match against another non-draw with a bad rep with PPV buyers and turned it into the kind of business that UFC 117 did?

What will be interesting is to see if both Silva and Sonnen continue to draw on their own. A rematch would almost certainly break the 1 million buy barrier and would do more business than a fight between Silva and Vitor Belfort. The UFC's intentions will be made clear by what direction they choose. Will they go for the money (Sonnen rematch) or toward the intended direction (Belfort).

Still, this is a huge success for the UFC and the second straight summer it's had two blockbuster pay-per-view events in a row (UFC 100 and 101 last summer).

SBN coverage of UFC 117: Silva vs. Sonnen