MMA Fighting has obtained the early numbers for last month's (Nov 16. 2013) UFC 167: "St-Pierre vs. Hendricks" pay-per-view (PPV) event from Las Vegas, Nevada. And the PPV buys are pretty good for the 20th Anniversary event for Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC).
According to the report, UFC 167 -- which featured a Welterweight title fight between then-division champion Georges St-Pierre taking on Johny Hendricks and a co-main event between Chael Sonnen and Rashad Evans -- raked in 600,000 to 650,000 buys.
That's more than enough to solidify St-Pierre's status as the PPV king, whose fights brought in the most buys for UFC in 2013 when combined with his UFC 158 bout against Nick Diaz, which tallied an astounding 950,000 PPV buys.
St-Pierre announced he would step away from the fight game following his controversial split decision victory over "Bigg Rigg," vacating his title in the process.
Hendricks and Robbie Lawler will now duke it out at UFC 171 on March 15, 2014, to crown a new division king.
With "GSP" leaving, it will undoubtedly leave huge hole in the UFC's PPV buys for 2014.
Nonetheless, the Zuffa-owned company will survive. After all, it still has the second biggest draw on its roster to bank on.