Dana White Claims UFC 223 Is Trending As Biggest Event In Almost Two Years

UFC 223 is set to be a huge event despite not having the original main event that had been advertised over the past few weeks.

There was a fear that Tony Ferguson vs. Khabib Nurmagomedov could be canceled and it turned into a reality.

The promotion had been promoting this lightweight title fight at the UFC 223 pay-per-view as their next big event. The trends were there for it to be the biggest thus far this year.

There was some concern that it wouldn’t do as well once it was revealed that Ferguson wouldn’t be able to compete due to injury.

The UFC was able to talk featherweight champion Max Holloway into accepting the fight and go for history as if he beats Nurmagomedov then he would be a two-division champion.

UFC President Dana White went on record by stating at Wednesday’s (April 4, 2018) press conference that this event is the biggest trending fight since UFC 205.

“The great thing about us being able to pull this off and him stepping up is this thing is a sellout on Saturday and all the trending for pay-per-view (PPV), this is the biggest fight since UFC 205,” said White (transcript courtesy of MMA Mania).

UFC 205, which took place back in 2016, featured Conor McGregor’s history-making win over Eddie Alvarez to win the lightweight title.

This event also beats out UFC 207 which marked Ronda Rousey’s highly-anticipated return only to be dominated by UFC women’s bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes in the main event.

UFC 207 also featured a co-main event bantamweight title fight between Cody Garbrandt and Dominick Cruz that did 1.1 million PPV buys.

The latest big event was UFC 214 that saw a light heavyweight title fight between Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier that reportedly raked in 860,000 buys. UFC 205 pulled in 1.5 PPV buys.

A rematch between Rose Namajunas and Joanna Jedrzejczyk will serve as the co-main event of UFC 223.

Rounding out the five bout main card is Al Iaquinta vs. Paul Felder in a lightweight bout, Michael Chiesa vs. Anthony Pettis in a lightweight bout, and Renato Moicano vs. Calvin Kattar in a featherweight bout.