Dave Meltzer reports in this week's Wrestling Observer Newsletter that 600,000 buys is the preliminary estimate for UFC 81. Regarding Lesnar's worth, Meltzer wrote:
That show was not going to do more than 325,000 buys with the Tim Sylvia vs. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira match and a semifinal of Nathan Marquardt v. Jeremy Horn. In fact, that would be an optimistic expectation. So if this holds up, Lesnar was worth $12.36 million in overall revenue (f0r UFC he would be worth about 40% of that as UFC would probably only see a little over $5 million of that increase).600,000 is an impressive number, likely good enough for top five all time in gross buys and top three in revenue (because of the $44.95 price tag), but the story of Lesnar's true value to the company is yet to be told. His first fight was guaranteed to move the buy rate, particularly in light of the company targeting a new audience in the form of pro wrestling fans.
Now the easy fruit has now been picked. The questions moving forward are:
- How sustainable is Lesnar's drawing power? Did fans view him as a one time novelty, especially in light of his loss, or was his performance promising enough to leave them wanting more?
- More importantly, how much of the new pro wrestling audience that sampled the show to see Lesnar can the company retain as regular viewers? The show was reportedly expected to draw a heavy percentage of new viewers, as high as 50% according to some sources.
The final number usually shows significant growth from the early estimates, however, there have been reports that this show did an unusually high number of advance buys which could temper the usual growth.
