Updated throughout the day with quick takes from staff.
Early reports on UFC 113 on 5/8 in Montreal have the show doing 520,000 buys, slightly above the 450,000 that the first Lyoto Machida vs. Mauricio "Shogun" Rua fight did. We should note that there were cable reports as high as 687,000 for the show, and trending patterns were only slightly behind GSP vs. Dan Hardy and the highest besides that show since August, which would also indicate something closer to the latter than the former.
While most sites are playing the "these numbers are great...wait, no, they're awful" game as with every time the PPV numbers come out the truth is: they fall exactly in line with that most people were thinking. If it ends up being 687,000 then it will have outperformed most any reasonable expectations. If it's the low number of 520,000...that's a fine number.
Shogun/Machida 2 was well past the date where it was still a "hot" rematch for casual fans, Kimbo's mystique was more or less gone, and there wasn't another huge fight on the card. So for a main event featuring two Brazilians I'm sure the UFC is plenty happy.
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