Report: UFC 200 fails to surpass UFC 100, 196 PPV numbers

By Russell Ess - July 15, 2016

The UFC was surely planning to make their historic UFC 200 card the biggest event in UFC history.

Brock Lesnar

The fight card looks like it had the most expensive roster to date in the disclosed payouts report, perhaps setting the UFC record for fighter payouts for a single UFC event.

However, the UFC 200 card took giant turns with first taking Conor McGregor vs. Nate Diaz off the card due to McGregor’s promotional issues. Then, adding Brock Lesnar to the event added back a great deal of attraction. Days before the event took place, Jon Jones was pulled from the title fight versus Daniel Cormier and Anderson Silva was added to the mix, which very likely had an effect on the event as well.

With all the changes with UFC 200, it sounds like the historic event failed to meet their own expectations of crushing all previous numbers.

MMA journalist Dave Meltzer spoke on ESPN radio and claimed that UFC 200 failed to surpass pay-per-view numbers from UFC 100, UFC 193, and 196.

One record UFC 200 did break was the live attendance and gate for a UFC Las Vegas show. Forbes reports that the attendance for UFC 200 was 18,202 with a live gate of $10.7 million, which surpassed UFC 196’s previous record of 16,516 fans with a gate over $10 million.