The Fury vs Ngannou PPV numbers have sparked a massive debate after conflicting reports circled over the validity of low sales.
Tyson Fury’s split decision win over ex-UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou polarized audiences before, during, and after the event. However, it was tipped to be a solid success in the United States paid platform market.
Despite Fury struggling to get to grips with Ngannou’s power, the WBC ruler managed to see out a points win and remain undefeated.
However, a week after the event, an MMA insider and wrestling fan called Dave Meltzer opened up a can of worms.
Fury vs Ngannou PPV numbers
Meltzer claims the Fury vs Ngannou PPV numbers were so bad they were lower than every UFC Pay-Per-View in history.
The UFC has a long track record of not selling anywhere near the number of boxing PPVs. Its lowest sales rank around the eighty thousand mark, and there are plenty of them.
But Fury vs Ngannou didn’t get over 70,000 combined on TV PPV sales and ESPN+ streams, according to Meltzer.
Some have since refused to take Meltzer’s word for it despite his inside knowledge due to the recent merger of UFC and WWE. Some higher profiler podcasters have even gone so far as to state the Fury vs Ngannou PPV sales did very well.
They certainly would have gone better than the USA in the United Kingdom. The mark-up price in the UK, where Fury is a star, was three times less than the eighty bucks in the USA.
Therefore, Fury vs Ngannou was expected to hit the half-a-million mark on British soil at least. That’s despite the fight occurring in Saudi Arabia.
Social media narrative
But the US is a different story. For one, PPV figures can be misleading and contrast from several sources. There’s no real way of verifying unless someone involved in the event comes forward.
This may now be the case for Fury vs Ngannou, as contest promoters will not want any notion of low sales to be the narrative. Especially not when there’s a rematch in the offing.
For now, the social media story is running with terrible buys. The tsunami shows no signs of slowing down either.
Fury has irked some of the boxing world with his performance amid claims he didn’t prepare properly for the MMA star.
This is seeing a lack of empathy to challenge the narrative that will certainly not please the promoters or the Saudi investors.
Phil Jay is an experienced boxing news writer.
Editor of World Boxing News since 2010.
