A recent report suggests that Saturday night’s UFC 261 event sold over 700,000 PPV buys domestically in the United States.

The showcase featured three title fights and also marked the return of fans to the arena after more than a year of them not being able to attend.

While the event wasn’t perfect, the Jacksonville crowd was electric from beginning to end and they were rewarded with some absolutely insane moments of violence.

The main event, as we know, was headlined by Kamaru Usman and Jorge Masvidal with Usman securing a vicious win via second round knockout.

Everyone thought it’d do pretty well, but few could’ve imagined it would do as well as the Sports Business Journal is suggesting.

#ufc261 pic.twitter.com/vUQditi6AV

— Jason Cruz (@dilletaunt) April 27, 2021

“I”m told that UFC 261 claimed more than 700,000 pay-per-view buys for ESPN+ on Saturday night.”

Given the fact that there are two paywall barriers that fans need to get through in order to purchase the event, we’d say this is something of a home run for the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

The first fight between these two reportedly sold over 900,000 and while some may see this as a step down, we still think over 700,000 is an absolutely insane figure in the current climate.

Everyone knows that Jorge Masvidal has been able to blossom as a legitimate PPV draw – but moving forward, we may have to start saying the same thing about Kamaru Usman.

He isn’t seen as a conventional superstar but after knocking Masvidal out in the manner he did, it’s hard to ignore what he’s capable of.

As for the UFC, they could quite easily be on track to have their best year since 2016.

Do you think Jorge Masvidal was the reason why the PPV buys were so high for UFC 261? If not, what do you believe the reason to be? Let us know your thoughts in the comments, BJPENN Nation!