UFC 268, headlined by a welterweight title fight at Madison Square Garden, did fairly well on pay-per-view.
According to the Sports Business Journal, UFC 268 sold 700,000 pay-per-view buys in the United States. Those numbers are from ESPN+ buys only and do not reflect buys from other countries like Canada. UFC 268 is the fourth highest-selling PPV of the year behind UFC 257 (1.6 million), UFC 264 (1.5 million), and UFC 269 (800,000). UFC 261, which Usman also headlined also came in at 700,000 showing he is a PPV draw.
In the main event of UFC 268, Kamaru Usman defeated Colby Covington by decision to defend his belt. It was a competitive back-and-forth fight but Usman ended up getting the better of his rival and going up 2-0 on Covington. After the fight, Usman had nothing but praise for his rival.
“I gotta give it up,” Usman said when addressing Covington after the fight. “There’s a lot of trash talk. There’s a lot of bad blood here and I’m sure there’s still going to be some after tonight, but this guy’s a tough son of a b*tch. He’s tough as sh*t… I wanted to get crazy and I wanted to get him out of there but I knew with a guy like this, he’s going to creep back in there and we’re going to end up in a situation we don’t wanna be in. When you share an Octagon with someone this tough. You can’t help it. You know that respect is going to come.”
The co-main event of UFC 268 saw Rose Namajunas beat Weili Zhang in their rematch to defend her strawweight title. The card also saw Justin Gaethje defeating Michael Chandler in one of the best fights of all time. Marlon Vera also knocked out Frankie Edgar while Shane Burgos beat Billy Quarantillo on the main card.
