When Tito Ortiz relayed that he thought his third fight with Chuck Liddell could sell 200,000 pay-per-view buys, at least, most folks in the MMA industry scoffed. Now, estimates are in for the card’s PPV totals and they’re low…really low.
MMA Fighting’s Dave Meltzer is reporting that early estimates indicate last Saturday’s fight sold around 40,000 PPV buys. That figure is higher than what the LA Times’ Lance Pugmire was told, which was that the bout could have moved as little as 30,000 buys. Kevin Iole from Yahoo Sports heard the fight might have sold 25,000.
So, if accurate, this is really disappointing news for Golden Boy Promotions, and of course Ortiz and Liddell, who were in line to receive dividends from the sales. Meltzer’s report also notes, however, that online interest in Liddell – Ortiz 3 was actually quite solid, but that it didn’t translate into sales.
Ortiz avenged his 2004 and 2006 losses to Liddell at the recent event, by knocking out the latter in round one.
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