UFC 257: Historic PPV Numbers Announced For Conor McGregor vs Dustin Poirier

UFC 257 has made history. No Conor McGregor fight goes without the attention of the mainstream, but not all fights are guaranteed historic sellers. He showed his drawing power last year when he sold over a million buys for a fight against Donald ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone, despite Cerrone not being a top-level contender at the time.

They don’t get any more top-level than Dustin Poirier today, as he showed with his sensational TKO of Conor. Poirier was considered the de facto number one contender after Justin Gaethje lost to Khabib Nurmagomedov. Conor vs Poirier was going to be a number one contender matchup, meaning there were genuine stakes.

UFC 257 has sold 1.6 million PPV buys, which would make it the second highest-selling UFC PPV of all time. It is still behind UFC 229, which featured Conor and Khabib. However, it has tied Conor vs Nate Diaz II and surpassed their first encounter. It has also surpassed Conor’s bout against Eddie Alvarez. It comfortably beat Brock Lesnar and Frank Mir’s headlining bout at UFC 100.

UFC 257: What prompted the historic sales?

Dana White had said prior to the event that the sales were trending towards historic highs. However, it will be hard to say that Dana thought this would become number two in UFC history.

While we know that Conor is a certified PPV seller, this further affirms Poirier’s position. The Diamond is going to be a lot more valuable after this win. He had respect as a genuine top contender and now is going to be that much more valuable.

The success of UFC 257 was because the biggest star of the sport was coming back after a year for a fight with genuine title implications. Along with that, the UFC grew its fanbase over 2020, which also has increased the general floor for UFC PPV sales. Adding some Conor McGregor magic on it was going to guarantee historic numbers.