Conor McGregor predicts staggering UFC 205 buy-rate, and it’s hard to fault his logic

Call him 'Mystic Mac,' because he predicts these things.

Conor McGregor loves a prediction or two. He's already forecast a quick finish in his lightweight title fight against champion Eddie Alvarez. At the official UFC 205 press conference he boldly exclaimed that he would knock the Underground King out cold in the first round. Now that we already know McGregor's vision of how he sees the fight playing out, there was only one thing left for Mystic Mac to enlighten us all on - how many eyes are going to tune in to the most highly-anticipated card of the year. He gave his guess on that magic figure to MMAjunkie and, as expected, it's very ambitious. However, his reasoning behind landing on that ballpark figure is pretty iron-tight.

“I’m almost certain we’re talking the 2-million mark. I feel it will break the 2-million mark. That’s what I’d like, and then go from there.”

https://twitter.com/SportsJOEdotie/status/780798977763643392?lang=en Two million may seem like an insane amount of PPV buys, especially considering his rematch against Nate Diaz at UFC 202 in August, reportedly broke the UFC pay-per-view record with 1.65 million buys. However, he sees a couple of differences between that card and this one, the main ones being the amount of promotion this event is getting, the strength of its undercard and the fact that it will be their first New York-based event.

“(It will break the record) 100 percent. I think the money is there. For UFC 202, they backed it with no money. UFC 200 is where the advertising dollars went. UFC 202 was worth double what they spent in advertising dollars. UFC 202 broke the pay-per-view record with very little push. A very, very weak undercard. Now you have me, you have New York, you have history and you have many factors. They’re pushing the advertising dollars on it.”

If you have seen the very shiny and expensive-looking promo for the card, you will fully agree that they are pushing the advertising dollars. As for the quality of the bouts further down the bill, just have a look at the prelims. Yes, that is a preliminary card you're looking at, although one would be forgiven for thinking it's the main card of another numbered event. Catch up with the latest episode of Football Friday Live