5 weakest UFC pay-per-view cards of all time

#4 UFC 161: Evans vs. Henderson – 06/15/2013

UFC 161 was inexcusably weak considering the UFC's great roster at the time

Most of today’s weaker UFC cards are caused when injuries remove most of the top fights from a show, and UFC 161 was perhaps the greatest example of that as the show lost both its main event and its co-main event, leaving the fans with a three-round headliner between Rashad Evans and Dan Henderson – two great fighters, no doubt, but hardly the most intriguing fight by 2013 with both men coming off losses.

Probably the best fight on paper was the quickly thrown-together co-main event between Stipe Miocic and Roy Nelson, but of course, this was years prior to Miocic’s rise as a main event star, and in fact he was actually coming off his loss to Stefan Struve prior to this booking. The fight did end up being the lone standout of the night, but that was faint praise.

The rest of the main card also sounded weak; nobody really wanted to see Ryan Jimmo vs. Igor Pokrajac – a match between two fighters with reputations for putting on dull fights; nobody had even heard of Rosi Sexton and Alexis Davis, both of whom were making their Octagon debuts, and the idea of Heavyweights Shawn Jordan and Pat Barry ever making it into title contention had long passed, even if people figured their fight could be exciting.

Essentially, wedged in between two far more stacked events in UFC 160 and UFC 162, UFC 161 looked like a massively skippable show, something inexcusable given the strength of the UFC roster at the time following the StrikeForce merger at the beginning of 2013. The poor buyrate – 140,000 – showed this, and in execution the show was disappointing too.