The biggest fight in mixed martial arts (MMA) history is on the horizon. Conor McGregor is set to make his UFC return against 155-pound champion Khabib Nurmagomedov. The action headlines UFC 229 on pay-per-view (PPV) next month on October 6th.
UFC President Dana White believes that the event will be able to do big business. So much so in fact, he says it’s trending to out-do the promotion’s best-selling PPV of all time. White appeared on ESPN’s “Get Up” this morning to promote the fight. He said UFC 229 is on pace to outsell UFC 196 by almost one million PPV buys (via MMA Fighting):
“It’s massive,” White said. “There has been a lot of talk about this thing doing 2 million buys. We’re trending right now at 2.5 million buys so that’s how big this fight is.
“The biggest fight we’d ever done was Diaz vs. McGregor at almost 1.6 million pay-per-view buys. Then we did the Floyd Mayweather fight.
“And now this by far is the biggest fight and one of the biggest fights ever in combat sports to be honest with you.”
As far as the relationship between McGregor and the UFC, White said the two sides get along fine. He did admit, however, there are things you have to suck up when dealing with McGregor, but he’s worth it:
“Conor works very well with us. We work well with him. There’s certain things you have to deal with Conor McGregor but he’s worth it. For example, the New York thing.
“The fact he thought he could come here and have this beef with Khabib in the middle of New York City and the way that it was done that was obviously the craziest thing. Normal, typical stuff for Conor is showing up an hour late for press conferences,” he explained.
McGregor hasn’t competed in the UFC for almost two years. His last fight took place at UFC 205 in which he defeated Eddie Alvarez for the lightweight title. White commented on McGregor’s longtime layoff from MMA:
“I said this might be the last time you see Conor McGregor when you make his kind of money. He loves to fight. The reality is this — when you make a lot of money when you haven’t had money — you go out and buy a bunch of things, you take care of your family and do some fun stuff but it gets old real quick. It took Conor two years and here we are.”
Do you think McGregor vs. Khabib will surpass 2.5 million PPV buys?
