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Vasyl Lomachenko’s win over Jason Sosa this past Saturday on HBO did better ratings than his fight last November with Nicholas Walters, with a 9% increase in viewership.
Lomachenko-Sosa averaged 832,000 viewers, peaking at 886,000 for the one-sided but incredibly impressive display from the Ukrainian, who is gaining buzz as perhaps the best fighter in boxing today, pound-for-pound.
These aren’t yet superstar numbers for Lomachenko, but it’s a positive step, somewhat reminiscent of Gennady Golovkin, who took a bit to find his audience, but eventually the buzz caught up to the performances, and people were tuning in on HBO to see him.
The undercard did solid numbers, as well. Oleksandr Gvozdyk’s HBO debut peaked at 702,000 viewers and averaged 690,000. It was a short fight, with Gvozdyk stopping Yunieski Gonzalez in the third round.
The opener, which saw Oleksandr Usyk successfully defend his WBO cruiserweight title against Michael Hunter, did 679,000 viewers, and peaked at 774,000. That’s a 21% increase over Usyk’s first HBO fight last December, when he beat Thabiso Mchunu.