The Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor pay-per-view numbers are in

The August 26 boxing match between undefeated legend Floyd Mayweather Jr and UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor was widely expected to topple all previous combat sports records. Unfortunately, it’s fallen short in that regard.

First, we learned that the so-called “money fight” failed to break the record for live gate, clocking in at $55,414,865.79, and failing to overtake Mayweather’s lucrative battle with Manny Pacquiao, which did a live gate of $70 million. 

Now, it appears Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather’s blockbuster battle also failed to break the pay-per-view record. That record still belongs to the aforementioned Mayweather-Pacquiao fight, per  BoxingScene.com (via BloodyElbow.com).

BoxingScene.com has learned that Mayweather-McGregor is expected to have generated approximately 4.4 million domestic pay-per-view buys and that an official announcement could be made as soon as this week.

That would mean that the highly publicized spectacle between boxing legend Floyd Mayweather Jr. and UFC superstar Conor McGregor, while wildly successful financially, didn’t break the pay-per-view record for combat sports. Mayweather’s maligned win against Manny Pacquiao still owns that distinction.

Roughly 4.6 million consumers purchased Mayweather-Pacquiao in May 2015. Based on the mainstream traction Mayweather-McGregor gained during their infamous four-city, three-country promotional tour in July, some involved in the event, most notably UFC president Dana White, thought Mayweather-McGregor would surpass 5 million buys.

White previously stated that this Mayweather vs. McGregor card was tracking to “kill” 4.9 million buys. If it had done so, it would have overtaken the record set by Mayweather vs. Pacquiao. Apparently, however, this is the latest example in White’s long history of exaggeration and hyperbole. Then again, who knows how the PPV sales would have done if the card wasn’t pirated by so many people.

While Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather failed to set a new PPV record outright, they did set the PPV record for the UK, surpassing 1 million buys and crushing the previous record set by Anthony Joshua and Wladimir Klitschko’s heavyweight showdown in Wembley Stadium. 

Are you surprised Conor McGregor battle with Floyd Mayweather didn’t set the new record for pay-per-view sales?

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 9/27/2017.