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UFC 229 goes down on Saturday and as we all know, the fight between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Conor McGregor has been pushed as the biggest fight in UFC history – meaning UFC 229 will be considered one of the biggest shows in company history too.
But will it go down as a classic once the hype is over and all we’re left with are the fights? Come Sunday we’ll find out. The UFC has put on plenty of shows considered their biggest before – some good and some bad. Here’s a look at 7 of them.
#1: UFC 40: Vendetta – 11/22/2002 – Las Vegas, Nevada
Why was it a big show?
Zuffa had purchased the UFC in late 2000, but despite their best efforts, by late 2002 MMA hadn’t broken into the mainstream and the promotion was struggling financially. So they turned to a bit of old-school pro-wrestling booking and brought in one of the biggest stars of the Wild West era of the UFC – Ken Shamrock – and matched him with bitter rival and UFC poster-boy Tito Ortiz with the Light-Heavyweight title on the line.
The buzz for the show was immediately bigger than anything the UFC had experienced since those early years, with both men appearing on various TV shows to build the fight. And the UFC stacked the undercard too, showcasing a Welterweight title fight between Matt Hughes and Gil Castillo, as well as three of the promotion’s most popular up-and-comers in Robbie Lawler, Carlos Newton and Chuck Liddell.
What happened?
The show went above and beyond all expectations as none of the 8 fights – including the 3 prelims – went the distance and most of them finished in violent and entertaining fashion. In the main event, Ortiz destroyed Shamrock over three rounds, confirming his position as the top fighter of the new UFC generation.
It also drew well on pay-per-view for the time period – pulling in a 100k buyrate, more than double the previous show. Legendary referee ‘Big’ John McCarthy has credited the show with being the “turning point” for MMA in North America, and it’d be hard to disagree with him.
Success rating: *****
#2: UFC 52: Couture vs. Liddell II – 04/16/2005 – Las Vegas, Nevada
Why was it a big show?
Despite the success of UFC 40, the UFC continued to struggle for mainstream acceptance in the years that followed. But in 2005, they managed to land a television deal with Spike TV, and the first series of The Ultimate Fighter followed. The show was a massive success and brought a whole new fanbase to the promotion, and the Finale card – which featured the classic fight between Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar – only cemented the UFC as the hot new thing.
UFC 52 followed a week later and was main evented by the coaches of the inaugural TUF season, Randy Couture and Chuck Liddell, fighting for Couture’s Light-Heavyweight title. Despite the lack of a bitter rivalry between the two, TUF had effectively made them the biggest stars in the promotion. The undercard was strong too, with a Welterweight title fight between Matt Hughes and Frank Trigg the main highlight, as well as early appearances from future stars like Georges St-Pierre and Patrick Cote.
What happened?
The show turned out to be an all-time great for the UFC as the fighters took the opportunity they were given – the show set a new buyrate record of 280k – and basically every fight delivered in spades. Hughes vs. Trigg was an instant classic, featuring a remarkable comeback from Hughes to retain his title, and in 2015 it became the second fight to be inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame. St-Pierre vs. Jason Miller and Cote vs. Joe Doerksen were also amongst the best fights of 2005.
The main event ended quickly as Liddell knocked Couture unconscious with a right-hand midway through the first round to claim the Light-Heavyweight title, and from there he became the UFC’s most bankable star, basically supplanting his friend-turned-rival Tito Ortiz. With so many new eyeballs on the product, the UFC needed to knock this one out of the park and they did so in style.
Success rating: *****
#3: 100 – 07/11/2009 – Las Vegas, Nevada
Why was it a big show?
After plenty of success following the TUF boom, the UFC somehow managed to become even bigger in 2008 thanks in part to the signing of former WWE champion Brock Lesnar, who brought even more new fans to the sport and ended the year as the new Heavyweight champion.
His first challenger was to be interim champion – and the man who defeated Lesnar in his UFC debut – Frank Mir, and the stars aligned to make the fight in time for UFC 100, a show Dana White and company had already decided was going to be a massive one.
To stack the show even further, the promotion added a Welterweight title fight between Georges St-Pierre – the second-biggest star on the roster behind Lesnar – and Thiago Alves, as well as a major grudge match between Middleweights Dan Henderson and Michael Bisping. Essentially, the UFC had never put on a show quite this big before.
What happened?
The show shattered the UFC’s record buyrate by drawing a monster 1.6m pay-per-view buys, and Lesnar went above and beyond all expectations by smashing Mir to pieces in the second round before cutting one of the most memorable promos in MMA history. Henderson meanwhile delivered one of the all-time great knockouts, leaving Bisping looking like a corpse following a big right hook.
Outside of those two fights though, the show was largely unmemorable – St-Pierre outpointed Alves in a pedestrian fight and many people forget that the 5th fight on the main card was a dull Jon Fitch showcase. Of course, UFC 100 was a massive financial success for the company and made Lesnar into an untouchable, Tyson-esque figure for a time, but it probably wasn’t top three in 2009 in terms of show quality. You can’t argue with that buyrate, though.
Success rating: ****
#4: UFC 148: Silva vs. Sonnen II – 07/07/2012 – Las Vegas, Nevada
Why was it a big show?
Anderson Silva and Chael Sonnen first fought for the Middleweight title in 2010, and somehow the stars aligned for both men; Sonnen took the fight to Silva more than any other fighter had done before despite losing in the end, and his pre-fight trash talk brought interest that Silva had always struggled to gain despite winning an incredible 11 UFC fights to that point. Essentially, the rivalry with Sonnen made Silva into the superstar he always should’ve been.
Suddenly he was one of the UFC’s most bankable fighters, and when the rematch with Sonnen was announced for UFC 148 – complete with an undercard featuring a Bantamweight title match between Renan Barao and Urijah Faber and the trilogy fight between Tito Ortiz and Forrest Griffin - Dana White was so confident that it’d break the buyrate record held by UFC 100 that he promised to base jump from the roof of the Mandalay Bay resort if it failed to do so.
What happened?
The card ended up weakened by various changes, as the UFC had to move the Barao/Faber fight to UFC 149 when that show lost its main event, and were forced to remove Rich Franklin from his fight with Cung Le and replace him with a lesser star in Patrick Cote. In the end, Ortiz/Griffin acted as co-main event to the long-awaited Silva/Sonnen rematch.
That fight went very differently to the original – this time Silva never felt like he was in danger and finished Sonnen by TKO in the second round. And Griffin vs. Ortiz was very different from their previous two fights as well, as both men were clearly past their best.
Basically, UFC 148 just about failed to live up to all the hype despite being a decent show overall, and it wasn’t as big a box-office smash as Dana was hoping it would be either – drawing 925k pay-per-view buys and missing out on the record. With the weakening of the card, it was perhaps the first sign that the promotion was spreading itself too thinly – a criticism that still holds weight today.
Success rating: ***
#5: UFC 189: Mendes vs. McGregor – 07/11/2015 – Las Vegas, Nevada
Why was it a big show?
By 2014, stars like Lesnar, St-Pierre and Silva were either gone from the UFC or on their way down, and for a while it looked like the promotion would struggle to replace them. But by early 2015 two stars arguably even bigger than their predecessors had emerged – Ronda Rousey and Conor McGregor.
UFC 189 was initially supposed to see McGregor challenge Jose Aldo for the Featherweight title, but Aldo ended up withdrawing due to injury and former title challenger Chad Mendes stepped in to take the fight. That didn’t really dull the hype at all and considering it was McGregor’s first pay-per-view main event, UFC 189 felt like an incredibly big deal.
The undercard wasn’t as stacked as some previous UFC shows, but it certainly had the feel of a new generation breaking through – young talent like Thomas Almeida, Gunnar Nelson, Brandon Thatch and Alex Garcia were all competing while a Welterweight title fight between Robbie Lawler and Rory MacDonald acted as the co-main event.
What happened?
The preliminary fights weren’t outstanding but by the time the main card rolled around, everything went right for the UFC. Almeida and Nelson won their fights in highlight reel fashion, and a brawl between Dennis Bermudez and Jeremy Stephens looked like a lock for Fight of the Night – before MacDonald and Lawler put on an instant classic that some fans consider the greatest fight in UFC history, bar none.
The main event also lived up to the hype. Mendes and McGregor received live music for their walks to the cage and the fight felt bigger than any other before it. McGregor overcame some early adversity to stop Mendes in the second round and the crowd reaction clearly confirmed him as the UFC’s new biggest star. The show drew 825k pay-per-view buys – less than McGregor would pull in for later events, but a massive success considering it was his first headliner. For the UFC, this was a perfect night.
Success rating: *****
#6: UFC 200: Tate vs. Nunes – 07/09/2016 – Las Vegas, Nevada
Why was it a big show?
After the success of UFC 100 in 2009, it was clearly a smart move for the promotion to turn UFC 200 into a big deal too. The show was initially to be headlined by a rematch between Conor McGregor and Nate Diaz – which would go on to set the UFC’s new buyrate record two months later – but when McGregor refused to attend key media dates, the main event was changed to a rematch between Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier with the Light-Heavyweight title at stake.
A month prior to the show though, the UFC pulled out its real trump card – Brock Lesnar was back from WWE and would take on Heavyweight contender Mark Hunt in a move that shocked the entire MMA world. And to help matters even further, two more title fights were booked – a Featherweight title match between Jose Aldo and Frankie Edgar, and a Women’s Bantamweight title fight between Miesha Tate and Amanda Nunes.
Essentially, this looked like arguably the most loaded card in UFC history, even without McGregor.
What happened?
A disaster, in a word. Three days before the show, Jones was pulled from the card due to a doping violation, leaving it without a main event. Nunes vs. Tate was eventually moved into the spot while Cormier ended up fighting an older, unprepared Anderson Silva on less than a day’s notice. The show still had Lesnar but without a huge main event it immediately lost its lustre somewhat.
And in execution, the show was surprisingly one of the worst of 2016. It was bookended by two exciting fights – Nunes’ win over Tate in the main event and Cain Velasquez’s TKO of Travis Browne in the opener – but the three fights between – Aldo/Edgar, Cormier/Silva and Lesnar/Hunt – were dull outings that hardly inspired the crowd. For the fans that watched, it would be hard to consider the show anything but a disappointment.
In box office terms too, UFC 200 ended up underwhelming somewhat. Around 1.1m buys made it a clear success, but it still couldn’t outdraw any of the three McGregor-headlined shows of 2016, and it didn’t come close to the greatness of UFC 100 7 years prior. In the end, it was simply forgettable – something that would’ve sounded blasphemous going into the show.
Success rating: ***
#7: UFC 205: Alvarez vs. McGregor – 11/12/2016 – New York, New York
Why was it a big show?
The UFC had been attempting to run a show in New York for years prior to 2016, but MMA had always remained outlawed in the state. The longtime ban was finally lifted in early 2016 though, and when the UFC booked the famous Madison Square Garden to host UFC 205 in November, it was always destined to be a monster event.
Sure enough, the promotion delivered hugely – booking the first show to have three title fights since 2001’s disastrous UFC 33. Those would see Joanna Jedrzejczyk defend her Strawweight title against Karolina Kowalkiewicz, Tyron Woodley defend his Welterweight title against Stephen Thompson, and in the main event, Featherweight champ Conor McGregor attempt to become the first man to hold two UFC titles in separate weight classes by challenging Eddie Alvarez for the Lightweight title.
McGregor had already drawn two huge pay-per-view buyrates in 2016 – both alongside Nate Diaz – and UFC 202, in particular, had been a success, breaking the longtime record buyrate of UFC 100. Many observers expected UFC 205 to set another new record.
What happened?
For the most part, UFC 205 succeeded. The main card was largely excellent, with Yoel Romero’s knockout of Chris Weidman being a highlight. Jedrzejczyk and Woodley both successfully defended their titles in entertaining fights – Woodley vs. Thompson was awarded the Fight of the Night – and everything built nicely to the huge main event between McGregor and Alvarez.
That fight was surprisingly one-sided, as McGregor simply destroyed Alvarez over two rounds – knocking him down on multiple occasions – to take his second UFC title. It was a stunning performance from the Irish fighter – but wasn’t quite enough to break UFC 202’s box office numbers, as the UFC fans somehow bought into his rivalry with Diaz more heavily than they did his title challenge.
Still, at 1.3m pay-per-view buys it’d be hard to call UFC 205 anything but a major success, and despite holding multiple events in New York since – including a return to MSG in late 2017 – they haven’t really been able to top the magic of this show since.
Success rating: *****
