Two more Brazilian MMA icons will battle when Lyoto Machida takes on Vitor Belfort. Here's a look at the viewing information.
The Fight Pass prelims won't have strong competition for those who subscribe to the service. However, the entire FX prelims will go head-to-head with ESPN's Top Rank boxing event featuring Vasyl Lomachenko vs. Jorge Linares. That is one of the most anticipated boxing matches of the year and the former is one of the sport's superstars.
He has done impressive viewership numbers in previous ESPN fights. Because of the quality of opposition in this fight, it stands to reason we'll see more solid viewership numbers from him on Saturday. When you consider the FX prelims are devoid of a major draw things look bleak for the UFC's viewership on Saturday.
The UFC would likely be willing to trade lower viewership during the prelims for a higher buy rate for their pay-per-view. Unfortunately, no one should expect this PPV to blow anyone away with its sales. The last time Nunes headlined a pay-per-view was in September 2017 at UFC 215 in a rematch against Valentina Shevchenko. That show generated just 100,000 PPV buys.
That was the lowest reported buy rate for a UFC pay-per-view in 12 years. Without a particularly strong main card supporting Nunes-Pennington, the numbers figure to be modest again for this one.