Recently concluded UFC 278 featured a strong fight card with competitors including Kamaru Usman, Leon Edwards, and Paulo Costa. The Vivint Arena in Salt Lake City, Utah hosted performances by three of the group’s top stars. However, the numbers for paper reviews fell short of what was anticipated.
With Salt Lake City’s height of almost 1290 meters above sea level, the athletes experienced issues with endurance. The fighters will have less air to breathe due to the area’s high altitude and low pressure. In terms of their performances, both Paulo Costa and Luke Rockhold were clearly exhausted by the last round of the evening’s co-main event.
Sports Business Journal reports that UFC 278 only pulled 360k PPV buys, a considerable decrease from the 400k PPV sales at UFC 276, which featured “The Last Stylebender” Adesanya. Some athletes are more adept at adjusting to the altitude better than others because everyone adjusts to new conditions in their own unique ways. Additionally, a lot of MMA fans on Twitter said Alexander Romanov lost to Marcin Tybura because of the former’s endurance problems brought on by the high altitude.
White believes that weather conditions are always a factor wherever you fight, felt that elevation was a factor tonight, just like heat is a factor in Abu Dhabi.
White says SLC crowd was incredible tonight and says arena was 60% full for the first fight.
— Aaron Bronsteter (@aaronbronsteter) August 21, 2022
Dana White, president of the UFC, dismissed worries about elevation by saying that weather is always a role in fighting events. The Salt Lake Tribune reported that Edwards moved to Utah two weeks prior to the fight in order to acclimate to the high altitude. Rocky, however, assured the SLT that the elevation had not caused him any fatigue problems: “Everyone’s told me about the elevation!” Edwards added. “Back home, I’m sleeping at sea level, you know? But when I came out, I couldn’t tell no difference. It felt the same.”
Lastly, The sum of all these elements has led to UFC 278’s pay-per-view sales underachieving. If Usman wants to win back his championship and reach the level of Conor McGregor in PPV buyouts, he will need to step up his game by a big margin.
