It looks like history is going to be made one way or another on Saturday evening.
While the UFC just announced the release of additional UFC 205 tickets for their historic first-ever event in the state of New York later this evening, they already destroyed the all-time combat sports live gate record for the world-famous Madison Square Garden arena, as well as their own personal all-time gate record.
Headlined by Conor McGregor vs. Eddie Alvarez and featuring two other title fights and arguably the most stacked fight card of all-time, UFC 205 beat out the 1999 boxing match between Lennox Lewis and Evander Holyfield, which held the combat sports gate record at Madison Square Garden for 17 years and not only got bumped to number two by tonight’s mega UFC event, but by a considerable margin. For that matter, UFC’s previous personal best live gate numbers were also shattered, despite having less than half the amount of tickets sold as their previous best by comparison.
The Lewis-Holyfield fight that stood as number one at the box office for combat sports events at MSG drew $11 million ($15.9 when adjusted for inflation). The previous UFC gate record was for their UFC 129 event in 2011, that saw the debut of the UFC in another major venue — the Rogers Center in Toronto, Ontario, Canada — with Canada’s own Georges St-Pierre defending his Welterweight Championship against Jake Shields. That show featured 55,724 fans in attendance for a gate of $12.075 million.
The new all-time number one gate record — by far — for both Madison Square Garden and the UFC themselves currently sits at approximately 17 million dollars, according to a report by Bloomberg.com. Additionally, the article noted that tickets on the secondary market for tonight’s event are also blowing away a number of past records.
“The Notorious” one says he’s focused on making history, and yet again, he’s clearly the biggest contributor towards a pair of impressive all-time records that were shattered for his fight tonight. The Irish star who currently holds the UFC Featherweight Championship will look to make even more history by becoming UFC’s first-ever World Champion in two different weight-classes simultaneously when he battles Philadelphia native Eddie Alvarez for his UFC Lightweight Championship in tonight’s main event.
Join us here at MMANews.com later this evening for the absolute best and fastest updated live round-by-round results coverage of the entire UFC 205 pay-per-view.
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— MSG (@TheGarden) November 12, 2016
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— #UFCPittsburgh (@ufc) November 12, 2016
