UFC 268 PPV Buys: Colby Covington and Kamaru Usman Sell More PPVs Than Israel Adesanya and Nate Diaz

Colby Covington secures his place in history as UFC 268 becomes the 4th highest selling PPV of 2021. The event took place in the famous Madison Square Garden arena. UFC Welterweight Champion Kamaru Usman defended his title against the aforementioned Colby Covington. Usman got the job done in a tightly fought contest to complete his 4th title defence.

UFC has held only 3 events at Madison Square Garden. All three events had fights of massive stature. UFC 205 was main-evented by Conor McGregor, while UFC 217 marked the return of George St-Pierre. Although the fight between Covington and Usman was big enough, the UFC stacked the fight with a few banger. 

credit: MMA Junkie

The flyweight champion Rose Namajunas defended her title against the Chinese superstar Zhang Weili. This was their second fight on the trot. Namajunas was the challenger in the first fight. She knocked Weili out the first time. However, Zhang was way more competitive this time around but ultimately fell short.

credit: MMA Junkie

The event started off with a showdown between two of the most violent fighters on the UFC roster. Justin Gaethje and Michael Chandler put up one of the most enjoyable fights of all time. Both fighters hurt each other and almost finished the fight multiple times. However, it was Gaethje who managed to secure the victory via decision.

Colby Covington vs Kamaru Usman: UFC 268 buy rate revealed

‘TSN’ reporter Aaron Bronsteter revealed that UFC 268 sold 700,000 PPVs in the United States of America. The figures came via John Ourand of ‘Sports Business Journal‘. The number does not include PPVs sold in countries outside of the USA. It makes the event one of the highest selling PPVs of the year. 

Note: 700,000 ESPN+ pay-per-view buys. The worldwide figure is higher.

— Aaron Bronsteter (@aaronbronsteter) November 23, 2021

The year kicked off with a highly anticipated fight between Conor McGregor and Dustin Poirier. That event sold 1.5 million PPVs. The rematch at in UFC 264 sold 1.8 million PPVs. Although those were the only PPVs that sold over a million PPVs, UFC had plenty of other events which turned out to smash hits.

The fight between Israel Adesanya and Jan Blachowicz at UFC 259 drew 800,000 buys. Kamaru Usman’s fight with Jorge Masvidal at UFC 261 saw a buy rate of 700,000. All the PPV numbers are only made up of domestic figures. The numbers are most likely to shoot up after being adjusted for the international buys.