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Fighter's Corner


August 10, 2010 3:15 PM

UFC 117 by the numbers

Just days after one of the most exciting pay-per-view events the Ultimate Fighting Championship has put on, the numbers for UFC 117: Silva vs. Sonnen which took place live from the Oracle Arena in Oakland, CA, are starting to trickle in.

Fighter salaries have yet to be released by the CSAC but UFC President Dana White did announce the special bonuses for the event and attendance and gate figures have been released.

The "Fight of the Night" bonus went to Anderson Silva and Chael Sonnen for their epic five round championship struggle in which Silva pulled off a triangle submission in the 11th hour to retain his title. For that submission, Silva also walked away with co-honors for "Submission of the Night", a title he shared with Matt Hughes for his rare north-south choke out of jiu-jitsu specialist Ricardo Almeida. And taking home some extra cake for the "Knockout of the Night" was heavyweight Stefan Struve for his beatdown of Christian Morecraft.


Each fighter walked away with a cool $60,000 for their efforts, meaning Silva took home an additional $120,000 to his base salary and whatever PPV shares he may receive.

Also, according to White, the event drew a reported 12,971 attendees for a live gate of $1.56 million. The total number of comp tickets was not revealed.

And in the most recent of reports, Barry Alvarez over at Bloody Elbow is reporting that the current UFC 117 buy rates are trending just underneath one million.

"We don't have a buyrate and won't have a really good indication on how the show did until at least next week. I do know that using the method I usually use on Monday mornings, which is usually pretty accurate in terms of a predictor (I came up with 1.5 million for UFC 100 and the real number was 1.6 million, and 1.25 million for UFC 116 and the real number ended up being about 1.1 million, so it's sometimes up and sometimes down but usually close) the show is trending just slightly under the Quinton Jackson vs. Rashad Evans show, which did about 1 million buys. Dana White on Saturday night said his early trending info had him ecstatic and was pointing to the biggest Anderson Silva fight of all time. Keep in mind the previous biggest Anderson fight was versus Forrest Griffin, which did about 900,000. The feeling from the UFC side Monday was that it's likely going to finish at around a million buys or maybe just underneath that. "

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