UFC 106 is live on pay per view this Saturday night from the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, Nevada. While the cancellation of a Brock Lesnar vs. Shane Carwin heavyweight title fight took away the blockbuster potential of the event, the Tito Ortiz vs. Forrest Griffin bout that now takes top billing should still deliver a solid night of business for the UFC. Ortiz in particular has long been a pay per view machine, and based on his pre-fight fan buzz heading into Saturday, Tapology is predicting a healthy 510,000 buys.
We have slightly updated our method of making predictions since UFC 104, and are now using an absolute “buzz score” rather than a percentage “buzz share” for the forecast. The higher each fighter’s buzz score, the more people who have been searching and reading about that fighter online in the days leading up to the event.
Tito Ortiz receives by far the highest score of the main event and co-main event participants at just over 30. With his tabloid news presence and trash-talking expertise, Ortiz is generating serious online buzz as he prepares to make his UFC return. Griffin’s score is about half that of Ortiz but still respectable, while Anthony Johnson and Josh Koscheck add a moderate amount of kick for a co-main event.
| Fighter | Pre-Fight Buzz Score |
|---|---|
| Tito Ortiz | 30.6 |
| Forrest Griffin | 16.2 |
| Anthony Johnson | 9.3 |
| Josh Koscheck | 7.8 |
| Total | 63.9 |
Over the past five UFC pay per view events, the pre-fight buzz scores have been a strong predictor of performance with a relatively tight relationship between the scores and the ultimate pay per view figures.
The glaring exception is UFC 104, where Lyoto Machida single-handedly generated enormous online pre-fight buzz, and yet this activity did not fully transfer over into pay per view results. Our theory is that Machida had been on the cusp of stardom with immense casual fan curiosity, but that the prospect of an all-Brazilian main event was not quite accessible enough for many of those fans to place the order. Therefore despite UFC 106 coming in with a lower buzz score than UFC 104, we are sticking with the model’s prediction of 510,000 buys, which if accurate would out-do the results from the Machida-Rua card.
| Event | Main & Co-Main Event Pre-Fight Buzz Score |
Reported Pay Per View Buys |
|---|---|---|
| UFC 100 | 156.9 | 1,720,000 |
| UFC 101 | 83.1 | 850,000 |
| UFC 102 | 46.6 | 435,000 |
| UFC 103 | 56.2 | 375,000 |
| UFC 104 | 81.1 | 475,000 (preliminary) |
| UFC 106 (forecast) | 63.9 | 510,000 |
Pay per view buyrate estimates are based off of the great reporting and analysis that can be found at MMAPayout.com.
