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Message: [QUOTE="OzExorcist, post: 2921847, member: 23910"] Yes I know what he's saying - but what I'm saying, and everyone seems to be ignoring, as that there's simply [b]no way[/b] to say whether or not Conor will reach that same level in the future. People are saying this one loss is "proof" that he'll never be an all-time great, and that he was fast-tracked into a title shot without any justification. I'm saying that GSP, Silva and Penn were all as guilty, if not more so, of the exact same things at the same stages in their careers and they went on to be legends despite that. As for attendance and gate figures... First of all you're comparing two very different shows - GSP-Shields was in a 55,000 seat stadium, while McGregor-Diaz was in a 16,000 seat one. And if you want to say that Diaz and Holm had a big impact on the past weekend's sales, then you've gotta also concede that Randy Coutoure, Lyoto Machida and the same Nate Diaz (I'm not even mentioning the Aldo title fight on that card because we all know he's not actually a draw) helped GSP sell all those seats. As did the novelty of the UFC's first proper stadium show in a country that doesn't get many events (compared to Vegas, which has them every other week). So let's look a bit broader, here's the four most recent events for each (all stats from Wikipedia): UFC129 GSP-Shields: 55,724 attendance, $12m gate, 800k PPV buys UFC154 GSP-Condit: 17,249 attendance, $3.14m gate, 700k PPV buys UFC158 GSP-Diaz: 16,523 attendance, $3.63m gate, 950k PPV buys UFC167 GSP-Hendricks: 14,856 attendance, $5.76m gate, 630k PPV buys For the lulz too let's note that GSP got to fight all but one (UFC167) of those events in his native Canada. McGregor, of course, has to import his home-town crowd from the other side of the world. That's more impressive to my mind, but mileage may vary. Anywho, here's McGregor's numbers: UFCFN McGregor-Siver: 13,828 attendance, $1.3m gate, not on PPV, 2.75m viewers, easily the best FS1 card ever UFC189 McGregor-Mendes: 16,019 attendance, $7.2m gate, 825k PPV buys UFC194 McGregor-Aldo: 16,516 attendance, $10.1m gate, 1.2m PPV buys UFC196 McGregor-Diaz: 14,898 attendance, $8.1m gate, no PPV data yet. FWIW the FS1 prelims for UFC196 did 1.9m viewers, a prelim record, and that bodes well for the PPV sales. Anywho, in similar-sized venues McGregor's gates are almost double GSP's. There's not a lot of PPV data to go on but what there is backs up everything the UFC has been saying about McGregor's popularity. And we're looking at in-his-prime, certified legend GSP (with a home-field advantage in 3/4 cards). GSP also fought less often, with less risk of fatiguing the market (McGregor just fought in Vegas for the third time in eight months). Sorry to say it but the numbers bear out that Dana isn't blowing smoke up your ass. McGregor headlining a show really does move the needle. We'll see if he continues to I guess. It's hard to say what Nate Diaz does BTW: in his past 10 fights he's only been in the headlining match four times, and of those UFC196 with McGregor was the only one that was on PPV. His best gate of those headline spots, outside last weekend, was v Henderson for the lightweight belt: 14,387 attendance, $1.5m gate. Some others were just sad: 4,853 attendance and a $300k gate for his most recent fight with Grey Maynard, for example. [/QUOTE]

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