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Klitschko-Fury delivers strong ratings for HBO

Last weekend's heavyweight showdown between Wladimir Klitschko and Tyson Fury did strong ratings for an afternoon show, averaging 1.038M viewers.

Lars Baron/Getty Images

Despite the turnover at the top of HBO Sports, the network can take some solace in knowing that they had another major fight perform well for the network. The live broadcast of the Saturday afternoon fight from Dusseldorf, Germany averaged 1.038 million viewers, making it HBO's 10th best performing fight of the year -- and higher than a number of their prime time fights. It also nearly doubled Klitschko's last appearance on a HBO Saturday afternoon, where he fought Kurbat Pulev in a bout that averaged 620,000 viewers.

HBO also aired a replay of Klitschko-Fury last Saturday night during prime time, that when taken together with the live broadcast, averaged 1.714 million viewers. It should be noted, however, that the Saturday night replay was also packaged with a replay of the Cotto-Canelo middleweight title fight, which I'm sure helped out quite a bit.

Wladimir Klitschko has already stated that he will exercise the rematch clause from his contract to vindicate his loss, and HBO tells ESPN that they are interested in airing the sequel which is expected to take place next Spring.

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