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Dana White predicts at least 2 million buys for McGregor vs. Khabib, but is that realistic?

You could say that Dana White has high hopes for the UFC 229 pay-per-view headlined by a lightweight title fight between champion Khabib Nurmagomedov and Conor McGregor.

Whether or not you think the UFC boss’ hopes are realistic depends largely on just how big of a star you think McGregor is these days.

In comments to Yahoo! Sports, White predicted a record-breaking night on Oct. 6 in Las Vegas.

“I am confident it will do 2 million on pay-per-view,” White said. He also wouldn’t rule out 3 million, adding that the event, which was only finalized earlier this month, is “trending as big as anything we’ve ever done.”

That sets the baseline for the UFC’s expectations, giving us some idea of what White and co. would consider a success here.

But is it realistic?

McGregor’s best-selling pay-per-view in the UFC was his rematch with Nate Diaz at UFC 202, which sold around 1.6 million, according to the UFC’s own internal documents. His follow-up fight with Eddie Alvarez for the lightweight title dipped slightly, selling around 1.3 million, according to reports.

Of course, McGregor’s foray into boxing Floyd Mayweather outsold both those events by far, with 4.4 million buys. But then, having boxing’s biggest draw to help with the promotion probably assisted a little bit.

But UFC 229 is just a little over a month away, and there’s been little in the way of official hype-generating activities so far. There’s no world tour planned to promote it, according to White, and McGregor has been largely out of the public eye ever since that whole hand truck-through-a-bus-window incident.

Is McGregor (21-3 MMA, 9-1 UFC) still such a massive star – and his fight with Nurmagomedov (26-0 MMA, 10-0 UFC) such a hot ticket – that UFC 229 will outsell every UFC pay-per-view to date?

It’s certainly possible, especially with a pretty compelling story to tell surrounding the fight, complete with cell phone video of the melee that became marketing material. It’s definitely the biggest fight that the UFC can possibly make right now, and it’s coming along just in time after a relatively low-key year for the UFC on pay-per-view.

There’s every reason to think that all parties involved in this one are looking at a major “red panty night.” It’s just hard to say yet whether it will be the most lucrative in UFC history.

For more on UFC 229, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.

The Blue Corner is MMAjunkie’s blog space. We don’t take it overly seriously, and neither should you. If you come complaining to us that something you read here is not hard-hitting news, expect to have the previous sentence repeated in ALL CAPS.

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