Dana White: UFC 223 Currently Trending to Be the Biggest Pay-Per-View Since UFC 205

If Dana White is to be believed – which isn’t always the safest bet – the last-minute change to the UFC 223 headliner could provide a boost in pay-per-view buys.

On Sunday, the promotion announced that Tony Ferguson had withdrawn from his lightweight title showdown against Khabib Nurmagomedov due to injury and would be replaced on short notice by Max Holloway. That change added some new intrigue, as Holloway, the reigning featherweight titilist, will attempt to become the second fighter to hold two UFC belts at the same time.

“The great thing about us being able to pull this thing off and him stepping up, is this is a sellout on Saturday and all the trending for pay-per-view, this is the biggest fight since [UFC] 205,” White said at a press conference on Wednesday.

That is a serious claim by the UFC president. UFC 205 marked the Las Vegas-based promotion’s first-ever visit to New York and saw Conor McGregor claim the lightweight title with a second-round stoppage in the evening’s headliner. The November 2016 card also included title defenses by Tyron Woodley and Joanna Jedrzejczyk.

According to estimates, the event did approximately 1.3 million pay-per-view buys. Only one event since – UFC 207 – has reportedly surpassed the 1 million mark.

Even if White is exaggerating the numbers for UFC 223, one thing he can’t overstate is the significance of Holloway and Nurmagomedov agreeing to square off on such short notice.

“This isn’t the best option for [promotion of] this fight, but tell you what, I’m pretty f--king happy this came together the way it did,” White said. “No complaining here. It’s incredible for both these guys to step up.

“We’re been in positions here before where the guy that’s been training the whole time turns down the fight with the guy who’s gonna come in. For these guys both to accept the fight and the way that it was done…[Nurmagomedov] literally said, ‘I don’t give a s--t who you get; I’ll fight anybody.’ And then [Holloway] said, ‘I’m in’…They turned a real sh---y day into a good day on Sunday.”