Top 10 PPV's in 2008...

Thought this would be interesting. Top 10 North American PPV buy rates, 2008 1. Boxing: Oscar De La Hoya vs. Manny Pacquiao, Dec. 6, 1,250,000 2. UFC: Brock Lesnar vs. Randy Couture, Nov. 15, 1,010,000 3. Wrestling: WrestleMania, Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Paul “Big Show” Wight, March 30, 670,000 4. UFC: Georges St. Pierre vs. Jon Fitch/Lesnar vs. Heath Herring, Aug. 9, 625,000 5. UFC: Lesnar vs. Frank Mir, Feb. 2, 600,000 6. UFC: Quinton Jackson vs. Forrest Griffin, July 5, 540,000 7. UFC: St. Pierre vs. Matt Serra, April 19, 530,000 8. Boxing: Felix Trinidad vs. Roy Jones Jr., Jan. 19, 500,000 9. UFC: Chuck Liddell vs. Rashad Evans, Sept. 6, 480,000 10. UFC: B.J. Penn vs. Sean Sherk/Tito Ortiz vs. Lyoto Machida, May 24, 475,000 Obviously yahoo sports is all over MMA's collective nuts these days, but the numbers don't lie. Boxing does bigger numbers for a single card, but MMA has 7 of the top 10 spots. Although Floyd headlined the #3 PPV so that's gotta count for something. Pac vs. Mayweather beats all of these handily, IMO. http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/news?slug=dm-ppvbuys121208&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

Comments (12)

johnkraus

Good year for the UFC. Next year I see quite a few more boxing in the top 10. Pac/Hatton Pac/Floyd or Hatton/Floyd II Cotto/Margarito II Maybe we will see a third fight sqeezed out at the end of the year with the winner of Cotto/Margarito vs Pac/Hatton/Floyd I see a heavyweight fight at the end of 2009 being top 10 in PPV. Thats if we get to see the fight for the undisputed championship and a guy with charisma like Haye that can sell it.

17y ago

PaiidINFULLent

I thought WrestleMania sold over a million ppv buys?????????????????????

17y ago

KakutogiGumi

Yeah Yahoo LOVES MMA/UFC...I heard Lesnar-Coutoure did 850K...Notice how the cutoff was 475k while Cotto-Margo did 450k and JMM-Pac did better than 400k. It is also Meltzers column who is a UFC fan/writer. Ehhh. Meltzer's more of an expert then a fan. He's been covering MMA back when it was a movement to recognize Catch Wrestling as a martial art back in the late 80's. He knows the ins and outs of the sport and who to talk to in order to fill in the cracks. Now Kevin Iole....thats a guy who can suck some nuts.

17y ago

Mojita

Has Cotto - Margarito been released by HBO yet officially i never really understood why we never got an OFFICAL announcement off the ppv buys?

17y ago

Cadillac_Man

17y ago

mrpain81

1. Boxing: Oscar De La Hoya vs. Manny Pacquiao, Dec. 6, 1,250,000 I thought it was 1.5 Will probably end up 1.4 mil

17y ago

Soda_Popinski3739

Boxing has to start getting the younger guys out now like putting pavlik, miguel cotto, or paul williams on the undercard of pac vs. mayweather (if their is this fight of course) but everyone knows the promoters are waaayyy to greedy to ever do that Agree. I think that's where boxing could take a page out of the UFC's book and make it work. Boxing doesn't do a very good job of planting up and coming names in the casual fans head the way the UFC does. There's also no promoting future events between fights on a PPV, the UFC does that constantly. In boxing, it's all about tonight, whereas in the UFC they're laying out the future every chance they get. The way boxing is promoted is too "smash and grab" for it's own good.

17y ago

Danny_Gunz

17y ago

mrpain81

According to this article Mark Taffet of HBO said Pacquiao vs Marquez II did 525,000 PPV buys. The network's last PPV show -- the Pacquiao-Marquez rematch on March 15 -- logged some 525,000 buys, making it the highest-grossing bout in history at or below 135 pounds. http://www.sportsnetwork.com/merge/tsnform.aspx?c=sportsnetwork&page=boxing/news/news.aspx?id=4142452 Let's not forget Cotto vs Margarito did real close to 500k buys which would put it right on the bottom of that top 10. But Arum’s judgment was vindicated by the first post-fight pay-per-view numbers, which indicate that there were close to 500,000 buys. http://www.secondsout.com/Columns/index.cfm?ccs=208&cs=27341

17y ago

JunglistSoldja

History is everything

17y ago

KantotSilog

man that sucks. sad too see UFC taking over like that. MMA will never have the the history boxing has. LONG LIVE BOXING!!!!!!

17y ago

Mojita

I see UFC basically took over. Only way boxing has great PPV numbers if its a BIG-name, alas Jones, Tito, DLH ; but there past their best years, Mayweather retired, Pac won't be around for long - doesn't look good.

17y ago