As expected, Jon Jones successfully defended his title when he faced Anthony Smith in the main event of UFC 235. Despite Jones being a massive favorite in the light heavyweight contest, the event, which also featured a welterweight title fight between Tyron Woodley and Kamaru Usman put up a respectable number in estimated pay-per-view buys.
According to MMA Fighting, UFC 235, which took place at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on March 2, brought in an estimated 520,000 to 650,000 buys with a large number of those purchases coming in the two hours leading up to the pay-per-view portion of the fight card.
Jones has been one of the strongest PPV performers for the UFC. His UFC 232 matchup in December against Alexander Gustafsson drew an estimated 700,000 buys. That card also featured a co-main event bout between women’s champions Cris Cyborg and Amanda Nunes. Nunes won that fight by knockout, giving her both the women’s bantamweight and featherweight titles.
Jones’ highest estimated PPV number was the 860,000 that his July 2017 rematch against Daniel Cormier brought in. The only other cards Jones headlined that outperformed UFC 234 are UFC 182 (800,00) and UFC 145 (700,000.)
The numbers from UFC 235 dwarfed the 175,000 from UFC 234, the only other PPV card the UFC has staged in 2019.
The only events from 2018 that performed better than UFC 234 were UFC 229, which featured a main event bout between UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov and Conor McGregor (2,400,000) and the aforementioned UFC 232.
There are several reasons to believe the UFC could have a very good year as far as PPV business is concerned in 2019. Not only does Jones plan to fight three or four times in total this year, but there is also the possibility of a heavyweight title fight between Cormier and former champ Brock Lesnar. Conor McGregor, who has fought on three of the top four selling UFC PPV cards, is also expected to return to action at some point in 2019. McGregor is currently serving a suspension related to his role in the brawl that broke out after his loss to Nurmagomedov at UFC 229.
