No wonder Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) President Dana White said "King" Georges St. Pierre is back during yesterday's UFC 154 conference call.

If early estimates via Dave Meltzer's Wrestling Observer newsletter (subscription required) are correct, "Rush" is back and just as strong as ever in terms of pay-per-view buys.

Preliminary estimates for UFC 154 were 680,000 to 700,000 buys, with huge numbers in Canada, really strong in places like Saskatoon and Edmonton. It's in line or just below the Jon Jones vs. Rashad Evans numbers from earlier this year, so probably third for the year overall. It's lower than what GSP has been doing the last few years, but overall business is down from 2010 and Carlos Condit isn't in the league with Dan Hardy and Josh Koscheck when it came to building a grudge and marketing a fight, not that he did badly. Plus, the pub wasn't there. With Hardy, his Countdown shows on Spike were a lot bigger deal. With Koscheck, you had the entire season of TUF building the fight.

St. Pierre last fought over 19 months earlier in the main event of UFC 129 against Jake Shields for the promotion's debut fight in Toronto. Considering how long he'd been away and the lack of animosity between GSP and his opponent, the then-interim UFC Welterweight Champion Carlos Condit, the UFC brass should be very happy.

Did St. Pierre meet your PPV expectations? Were you one of the estimated 700,000 fans who purchased the event?