But even with no crowd favorite, the story was strong enough that early estimates of PPV numbers have topped 700,000 buys, by far the largest of Jones’ career. The number was big for UFC, because they had not established a new young star who was a major consistent draw since the rise of Brock Lesnar, now retired, and Georges St. Pierre, out for most of the year. While the draw was in good part due to the storyline, the number was big enough to where it, combined with WrestleMania a few weeks ago, seems to contradict a lot of people’s views of PPV as a dying industry. The big events, like this and WrestleMania, have done better than most expectations going in.