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Gennady Golovkin’s squashing of Vanes Martirosyan this past weekend did good numbers on HBO, according to Nielsen Media Research (via ESPN).
The HBO main event averaged 1.249 million viewers, peaking at 1.361 million viewers during the live telecast. That was sufficient enough to supplant Deontay Wilder vs. Luis Ortiz (which averaged 1.055 million viewers) as the most watched fight on premium cable television so far this year.
And If those numbers look surprisingly inflated, it’s likely because the card was aided by the fact that it took place on one of the two biggest fight dates of the year (Cinco De Mayo weekend) and wasn’t on pay-per-view — when fights this weekend typically are.
This fight was also the most watched premium cable fight since Golovkin overwhelmed Dominic Wade in two rounds back in April 2016 (averaging 1.325 million viewers).
The card’s opening bout between Cecilia Braekhus and Kali Reis — HBO’s first televised women’s fight — also did good numbers, averaging 904,000 viewers and peaking at 1.024 million viewers.