10 Highest Selling UFC PPVs In History

4. UFC 196 - 1,500,000 Buys

March 2016’s UFC 196 featured an absolutely remarkable main event.

UFC Featherweight Champion Conor McGregor was initially due to face off against UFC Lightweight Champion Rafael dos Anjos, but the fight was called off barely a month before the event due to dos Anjos breaking a foot.

As the UFC desperately scrambled to find a replacement to go up against The Notorious, both Jose Aldo and Frankie Edgar turned down the fight due to a lack of preparation time. Step forward, Nate Diaz.

The younger Diaz didn’t give a single solitary sh*t about the lack of preparation and stepped up to tap out McGregor in the second round of a contest that took place at welterweight.

Co-headlining the card alongside McGregor vs. Diaz was Miesha Tate submitting Holly Holm to become the new UFC Women’s Bantamweight Champion.

From an MGM Grand crowd of 15,000, UFC added a further $8 million in gate revenue to the 1.5 million PPV buys UFC 196 received.

Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.