In the final several years of his boxing career, Floyd Mayweather put up astounding pay-per-view numbers in fight after fight. Some of it was the opponent, but a lot of it was attached to the zero on Mayweather’s record.
Mayweather cleverly realized that there was a segment of people who would buy his fights to see him win, but there was an even larger group who wanted to see him lose. And so his fights became big events.
On Saturday, the UFC is expecting a big event when Khabib Nurmagomedov defends his lightweight championship in the main event of UFC 254 on Fight Island in Abu Dhabi against interim champion Justin Gaethje, a knockout artist who is the biggest threat to his title reign yet.