Dave Meltzer reports in the 11/27 Wrestling Observer that an anonymous cable industry insider has the UFC 63 – headlined by Matt Hughes vs. BJ Penn for the UFC Welterweight Title – buyrate pegged at around 700,000 buys.
If this is accurate, it would mean that UFC 63 is now the second most purchased show in UFC history, behind July’s UFC 61 (Shamrock vs. Ortiz) which sold around 775,000. In comparison, UFC 57 (Liddell vs. Couture) drew somewhere between 400,000 and 410,000 buys, while UFC 60 (Hughes vs. Gracie) broke the buyrate record at the time with around 600,000 buys.
This buyrate would make Matt Hughes, along with the likes of Tito Ortiz and Chuck Liddell, one of UFC’s strongest draws. With the Hughes-St-Pierre headlined UFC 65 garnering even more mainstream buzz than UFC 63, it may well be the case that the planned rematch between the two – tentatively scheduled for May in Montreal – will be the biggest show in UFC history.
Source: Wrestling Observer, Fox Sports
