"After the show, White also noted that they were expecting to take a hit on PPV. He received word that DirecTV went down all night so people with that provider were unable to purchase the show. Since he was at the show, he was probably only getting sketchy details. I was able to get the show on DirecTV with no problem. But there was an issue. Apparently if you automatically ordered through your remote in much of the country, there was no issue. However, if you tried to order by phone or by computer, there was a problem with the system that made it impossible, although the issue was apparently fixed in time for the replay show. We received a lot of feedback from DirecTV subscribers, split almost 50-50 between those who were able to see the show, and those who couldn't, and many wanted to see it and gave up, not buying the replay. It was significant enough that it cost them a fairly significant number of buys that they would have gotten. But probably not enough to change it from a low number to even close to an average number.
Very early numbers indicate about 190,000 North American buys (this is not a direct buy number or even a strong estimate but just a very preliminary figure). While nobody going in expected big numbers, that would still be below most expectations. As we always say, there is significant potential margin of error this early, but suffice to say this show probably did not do well. We'll have a better read on this in two weeks. But other indicators were down. Google searches, which usually have a decent correlation to where buys are usually not far from double searches, fell from 1 million for UFC 148 (which makes that correlation look bad but half of those were searches related to watching Anderson Silva shoulder Chael Sonnen at the weigh-ins, and for the show itself it was 500,000, which comes close enough to the correlation) and 100,000 for UFC 149 while this show was just over 50,000. But that shows DirecTV issues or not, the interest level in this show was well below normal." -Dave Meltzer
These numbers are terrible. MMA seems to have been slowing down for a while now, partially do to all of the watered down cards I am sure. You can't charge people the kind of prices they charge for a PPV if there aren't any fights on it anyone cares about. Henderson vs Edgar II was a rematch no one wanted to see on a card that wasn't very strong. Oddly enough, the UFC on Fox cards are have been way more stacked than the PPVs lately and it looks like that trend is going to continue.
I think the UFC needs to put on less cards. They simply don't have the star power to carry all of the cards they are trying to put on so you end up with tons of events no one cares about. They also need to start building up new stars. Right now they have been getting by on old Pride/UFC legends, and guys from Strikeforce and the WEC. Zuffa bought up all of the promotions with name guys for the most part so from now on they are going to have to build star power themselves.
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