Tito Ortiz: UFC 178 Will Hit One Million Pay-Per-View Buys Now
Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier‘s recent media scuffle has made a lot of noise in the MMA community this week. The scrap has been criticised by many fighters and members of the media for being “bad for the sport”. However, not everyone sees it as being a bad thing for MMA.
Former UFC light-heavyweight champion and current Bellator contender Tito Ortiz doesn’t think the brawl was such a bad thing for MMA and if anything is good for the UFC. Ortiz thinks the scuffle will push UFC 178 to getting over one million pay-per-view buys:
“At the end of the day, I think it’s good for the sport,” Ortiz said when he appeared as a guest panelist on ESPN’s ‘The Weigh-In.’ “That’s just me. This goes back to Lennox Lewis and Mike Tyson. This goes back to me and Ken Shamrock. Me and Chuck Liddell.
People tune in for this because they want to watch it. Everybody has an opinion. Why did Jones react like that? Is he afraid and overcompensated for it? This probably adds about 500,000 pay-per-view buys. The fight without this would have sold maybe 500,000. It will hit the one million mark now.”
There’s been a few rumours flying around trying to suggest the brawl was fake and just mere hype to pump up PPV buys. But Ortiz believe the fight was very real:
“It looked real to me. A fight is a fight. If you want to get in someone’s head, that’s the best way to do it. Cormier stood his ground. I would have done the same thing, both ways, as Jones or Cormier. What we do is real. It’s real competition and we’re fighting for our lives, pretty much. We’re trying to hurt each other. You get two alpha males that want to be the best in the world and there you go. I was really surprised it happened, though. This usually doesn’t happen.”
Regardless of whether you think the brawl was good for MMA or not. It’s hard not to agree with Ortiz in thinking the scuffle will push UFC 178 to over one million buys.
What do you make of the former champions comments?
