It's difficult to say whether this will get over the 500k mark now. Had he debuted in due time this would have could have been huge.
Early 2015 he was coming off of having gotten massive press with a two hour podcast of just burying the WWE and catching everyone off guard with the UFC announcement. Despite some of WWE fans especially pretending that he was never a draw and that no one likes him, he was still a cult star that ascended into the top tier, which is something that not many rasslers have been able to do in the last 10-12 years. Now cue nearly two years later however and the iron isn't so hot anymore. I think everyone is now already used to the thought that he's going to fight and he hasn't done anything of particular interest in the meantime, except delay the fight by injury.
I'd say social media is a pretty good gauge on how popular someone is, and he has more twitter followers than anyone in the UFC ( iirc ) except Anderson Silva, Dana White and Ronda Rousey. He has more followers than McGregor. Whether this will translate into PPV buys remains to be seen. Imo not having him as a co-main is a mistake and probably indicative of UFC not thinking that this will blow the roof off their PPV records anyway. Bellator would slot him as a main event even if that meant putting a p4p all championships on the line open weight class battle royal fight in the undercard.
Early 2015 he was coming off of having gotten massive press with a two hour podcast of just burying the WWE and catching everyone off guard with the UFC announcement. Despite some of WWE fans especially pretending that he was never a draw and that no one likes him, he was still a cult star that ascended into the top tier, which is something that not many rasslers have been able to do in the last 10-12 years. Now cue nearly two years later however and the iron isn't so hot anymore. I think everyone is now already used to the thought that he's going to fight and he hasn't done anything of particular interest in the meantime, except delay the fight by injury.
I'd say social media is a pretty good gauge on how popular someone is, and he has more twitter followers than anyone in the UFC ( iirc ) except Anderson Silva, Dana White and Ronda Rousey. He has more followers than McGregor. Whether this will translate into PPV buys remains to be seen. Imo not having him as a co-main is a mistake and probably indicative of UFC not thinking that this will blow the roof off their PPV records anyway. Bellator would slot him as a main event even if that meant putting a p4p all championships on the line open weight class battle royal fight in the undercard.
