UFC 234 estimated at 175,000 buys

Esther Lin, MMA FightingUFC 234 may have had a lot of people talking about it and watching the prelims on Feb. 9, but the late loss of the main event didn’t help pay-per-view numbers.

Early estimates have the show, headlined by Israel Adesayna’s three-round decision win over Anderson Silva, doing 175,000 buys. The card, held at the Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne, Australia, was thin when it came to star power to begin with, and then took a hit when middleweight champion Robert Whittaker suffered a hernia and collapsed bowel right before fight time. This led to the last-day cancellation of the Whittaker title defense against Kelvin Gastelum.

Silva vs. Adesanya may have meant more than the title…