If Dana White didn’t know Jorge Masvidal moves the needle, now he knows. Sunday’s stacked UFC 251 card on Fight Island – headlined by Masvidal’s unsuccessful tilt at Kamaru Usman’s welterweight title – drew a gigantic 1.3 million pay-per-view buys. It was the most for a UFC event since Conor McGregor lost to Khabib Nurmagomedov at UFC 229 in October 2018, which did a record 2.4 million buys. “He’s a big star,” admitted White at a media scrum in Abu Dhabi, ahead of Thursday’s UFC Fight Night: Kattar vs Ige event. “It was a very successful event,” the UFC president said. “We’re happy. This thing killed across the board in every way you could possibly kill it. It was awesome. “I said it to you guys the other night, I think when you put on a fight – a successful promotion of an event – this is a big melting pot of different things. “Fight Island was a massive star in this thing. Jorge Masvidal was a massive star. Obviously, Usman, the champion and a guy that we’re all starting to realise is tough to beat – and a great card underneath it. It all came together perfectly.” Masvidal reacts to huge UFC 251 pay-per-view buy rate Masvidal took the fight on six days’ notice after Usman’s original opponent, Gilbert Burns, tested positive for coronavirus. The Brazilian had only slid into the title fight, though; even negotiations with Masvidal broke down last month. “I was sitting in the saunas thinking, ‘If they had just came to their senses from the start’,” Masvidal said. “You were talking about the pay-per-view numbers. If I would have taken the original deal, it would not have been highly beneficial for me. The way they were structuring it, it just wasn’t. I had to take a gamble on myself. “The gamble was, ‘Fine, don’t give me much guaranteed money, but I’m gonna get paid on the pay-per-view side. If I bring in numbers I wanna be compensated for it’. They wouldn’t strike that deal with me the first time, but six days away we were able to strike that deal. “A lot of insane stuff like coronavirus happened, the guy gets dismissed six days away. But all these crazy things had to happen to get a deal I felt comfortable with.”