Boxing: Oscar De La Hoya vs. Manny Pacquiao, Dec. 6, 1,250,000
UFC: Brock Lesnar vs. Randy Couture, Nov. 15, 1,010,000
Wrestling: WrestleMania, Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Paul “Big Show” Wight, March 30, 670,000
UFC: Georges St. Pierre vs. Jon Fitch/Lesnar vs. Heath Herring, Aug. 9, 625,000
UFC: Lesnar vs. Frank Mir, Feb. 2, 600,000
UFC: Quinton Jackson vs. Forrest Griffin, July 5, 540,000
UFC: St. Pierre vs. Matt Serra, April 19, 530,000
Boxing: Felix Trinidad vs. Roy Jones Jr., Jan. 19, 500,000
UFC: Chuck Liddell vs. Rashad Evans, Sept. 6, 480,000
UFC: B.J. Penn vs. Sean Sherk/Tito Ortiz vs. Lyoto Machida, May 24, 475,000
FTA
With 12 pay-per-view events in 2008, UFC has a good shot at breaking the all-time record for pay-per-view revenue set by any organization during a calendar year. The World Wrestling Federation, now known as World Wrestling Entertainment, did approximately $260 million on pay-per-view during its heyday fueled headliners by “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, in 2001. Boxing’s biggest year was 2007, with HBO estimating $255 million on eight shows, carried by the Oscar De La Hoya vs. Floyd Mayweather Jr., fight, which drew pay-per-view’s all-time record of 2.4 million buys.
Although the De La Hoya/Pacquiao show drew the single most PPV buys of the year in terms of event sales, Brock Lesnar was the top draw of 2008 as he was able to draw 2.2 million buys over the course of three fights. In UFC history, this is second only to Tito Ortiz drawing 2.25 million buys over three fights back in 2006.
Also considering that De La Hoya vs. Mayweather set the Most Purchases for a Single Pay-Per-View Event record with 2.15 million purchases in 2007, the De La Hoya vs Pac fight had to be a disappointment for buys.
Would Bob Sapp have been as big as he was without roids, I mean football?
I think many WW whatever fans are now buying more MMA fights and less “wrestling events”.
Brock was huge in WW whatever because of his college wrestling career and redic strength. He gained fans because of his amazing athleticism and raw power, both of which he is now using in MMA. He did what he did to get paid, I respect that. If MMA was paying decent when he came out of college, I am sure he would have gone that route.
What is the deal about Bob sapp anyway? Ive seen he is a horrible fighter but I never understood what his story was. He reminds me of why Brock is in the position he is: both are monster guys who should be able to man-handle the opposition due to their raw strength. Granted brock has wrestling experience (and is pretty damn good at it) that is not why he is getting all the attention.
I also don’t know if I agree that he would walk out of college into MMA. You know better than most of us (especially me, who is just getting into the sport) that being a MMA fighter is such a different animal than other contact fighting sports. If he was a “fighter”, I would think thats the route that he would have taken, not caring what the pay was. He instead went that route AFTER making fame in WWW(hatever) and his success trailed over, even if he would turn out to be a piss poor fighter.
Bob Sapp was a football player for the Vikings ? but I thought he had an injury and left the sport.
Did the K-1 thing until he started to suck, and then started doing the MMA thing.
Edit: I found this
As for the Brock thing.
I think a purist would agree. If you look at Tito, he fought in college for UFC for free because if he was paid he would have lost his amateur college status.
I don’t know what goes on in Brock’s head, but I know he left wrestling because he missed the competition. He walked away from a huge contract. If you saw the man’s house and lifestyle on MMA insider you know he is not all about the money. He doesn’t have cable or the internet and drove a beater and a tractor. (similar to Matt Hughes)
Back when Brock got out of college unless someone pulled you into MMA the chances of you joining the sport was non-existent when compared to today.
Heck I think the whole Arizona wrestling team does MMA once they graduate.