There’s been much talk (normally revolving around the Diaz brothers) as to who is a “needle mover” in mixed martial arts today. With the UFC’s pay-per-view business in the toilet, this is a more relevant question than ever. Which fighters resonate with fans and inspires them to reach into their wallets and put their hard earned money down to buy a PPV? The MMA Manifesto sought to figure this out – not just the current “needle movers”, but the UFC’s all-time best sellers.
Rather than just go off raw sales numbers, which would skew the results heavily to the former “glory days” fighters when the UFC was selling PPVs like hotcakes (do people even buy pancakes any more?!), we compared a fighter’s selling ability within the context of the time period that his/her pay-per-view appearance took place. We took the fighter’s sales for his/her headlining PPV, and compared it to the average sales of the three PPVs leading up to his/her fight, and the three PPVs after his/her fight. So if the PPVs during a certain time period did 500,000 on average, but a fighter’s PPV did 1 million buys, he/she caused a 200% (2 times) sales increase.
So who came out on top? A surprising name – and, encouragingly enough for the UFC, a current fighter.
(Based on estimated PPV sales # from UFC 1 to UFC 181, excluding events where no sales figures were available. Fighters only credited for events where they were involved in the advertised main event, so no tournament PPVs included. Only fighters with at least two headlining appearances included)
Super Sales Stars
| Fighter | Average Sales | Projected Sales | Change |
| Chris Weidman | 706,667 | 284,706 | 248.21% |
| Brock Lesnar | 1,071,000 | 524,815 | 204.07% |
| Ken Shamrock | 191,429 | 94,895 | 201.73% |
| Shane Carwin | 892,500 | 513,750 | 173.72% |
| Kimo Leopoldo | 205,000 | 121,667 | 168.49% |
| Georges St-Pierre | 697,917 | 465,947 | 149.78% |
Your eyes are not deceiving you – PPV’s headlined by UFC Middleweight Champion Chris Weidman sell about 2.5 times more than non-Weidman PPVs during the same time period. There are a few caveats to this, though. First off, Weidman has headlined with MMA legend/drug cheat Anderson Silva on two out of his three headlining appearances. However, you’ll see Silva’s name way down on the “average” portion of our needle movers lists, as he tends to not be a massive PPV seller (although he’s gotten better as his career has progressed). Secondly, Weidman has benefited by having Ronda Rousey fighting in the co-main event on his last two PPV appearances, which certainly helped his sales (but, on the other hand, you’ll see later on in this article that Rousey hasn’t proven to be able to sell many PPVs despite her star power).
Brock Lesnar, however, was (is?) the real deal. During the glory days of UFC PPV sales, no star shone brighter than the former heavyweight champion. A Lesnar headlined card pretty much guaranteed the company a minimum of 1 million sales, and twice as many sales as any non-Lesnar card they put on during those times. While the man Dana White claims to be the UFC’s greatest draw, Georges St-Pierre, also cracks our superstar sales list, he had nowhere near the effect on sales that Lesnar did.
Above Average Sellers
| Frank Mir | 818,333 | 597,778 | 136.90% |
| Tim Sylvia | 448,500 | 329,759 | 136.01% |
| Royce Gracie | 440,000 | 332,583 | 132.30% |
| Nick Diaz | 543,333 | 418,750 | 129.75% |
| Forrest Griffin | 638,333 | 494,000 | 129.22% |
| Chael Sonnen | 691,667 | 540,000 | 128.09% |
| Johny Hendricks | 443,333 | 348,000 | 127.39% |
| Jon Jones | 515,000 | 405,455 | 127.02% |
| Carlos Condit | 550,000 | 442,500 | 124.29% |
| Andrei Arlovski | 353,750 | 299,545 | 118.10% |
| Dan Severn | 190,500 | 168,778 | 112.87% |
| Junior dos Santos | 526,250 | 471,250 | 111.67% |
| Rampage Jackson | 565,714 | 517,850 | 109.24% |
| Rashad Evans | 557,222 | 524,043 | 106.33% |
| Cain Velasquez | 518,000 | 487,273 | 106.31% |
| Chuck Liddell | 425,818 | 401,756 | 105.99% |
No real surprise names here, and size definitely sells as all the heavyweight names attests to. On second thought, Carlos Condit actually jumps out like a sore thumb on the list. And “bad boys” Nick Diaz and Chael Sonnen prove that everybody loves to root for (or against) the bad guy.
Average
| Tito Ortiz | 250,333 | 242,486 | 103.24% |
| Anderson Silva | 516,333 | 514,352 | 100.39% |
| Matt Serra | 465,000 | 467,833 | 99.39% |
| Matt Hughes | 325,625 | 334,000 | 97.49% |
| Sean Sherk | 255,000 | 268,500 | 94.97% |
Anderson Silva was a huge sales disappointment for the early part of his career, only to turn it around in his twilight days with big feuds with Chael Sonnen and Chris Weidman. And Tito Ortiz wasn’t quite the star he made himself out to be.
Underacheivers
| Robbie Lawler | 350,000 | 374,583 | 93.44% |
| B.J. Penn | 463,500 | 496,148 | 93.42% |
| Lyoto Machida | 528,000 | 577,586 | 91.41% |
| Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua | 450,000 | 520,000 | 86.54% |
| Ricco Rodriguez | 52,500 | 61,000 | 86.07% |
| Jon Fitch | 442,500 | 535,833 | 82.58% |
| Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira | 425,000 | 541,667 | 78.46% |
| Ronda Rousey | 395,000 | 520,833 | 75.84% |
| Keith Jardine | 412,500 | 544,583 | 75.75% |
| Randy Couture | 280,143 | 373,250 | 75.06% |
| Vitor Belfort | 302,500 | 426,222 | 70.97% |
| Frankie Edgar | 360,000 | 508,636 | 70.78% |
| Benson Henderson | 278,333 | 436,471 | 63.77% |
| T.J. Dillashaw | 170,000 | 279,375 | 60.85% |
| Yushin Okami | 267,500 | 444,917 | 60.12% |
| Urijah Faber | 271,667 | 475,833 | 57.09% |
| Demetrious Johnson | 160,000 | 289,375 | 55.29% |
| Dan Henderson | 276,250 | 507,292 | 54.46% |
| Rich Franklin | 307,000 | 574,326 | 53.45% |
| Renan Barao | 226,667 | 429,000 | 52.84% |
| Jose Aldo | 228,750 | 444,583 | 51.45% |
Ronda Rousey is the big surprise name on here. But it’s true – her headlining PPVs sell 75% less than the average UFC PPV during the same time period. Which is shocking considering she’s probably the company’s biggest crossover star at the moment. But the UFC appears to be aware of this problem, as she normally has been slotted in the co-main event spot on the cards she appears on.
Box Office Poison
| Chad Mendes | 207,500 | 420,000 | 49.40% |
| Gray Maynard | 247,500 | 503,750 | 49.13% |
| Patrick Cote | 170,000 | 397,197 | 42.80% |
| Wanderlei Silva | 250,000 | 625,417 | 39.97% |
Wanderlei Silva is considered a massive star and fan favorite, but he doesn’t have the PPV sales numbers to back up that assumption. And size sells, so lack of size explains the inclusion of the other names on the Poison list.
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