Golovkin-Macklin draws 1.1 million viewers on HBO

By Boxing News - 07/02/2013 - Comments

golovkin433By Allan Fox: WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin’s 3rd round knockout win over Matthew Macklin last Saturday night was seen by 1.1 million viewers on HBO, according to Dan Rafael of ESPN. These numbers were up considerably from Golovkin’s fight against Gabriel Rosado, which brought in 813,000 viewers on HBO in January and the 685 thousand that saw Golovkin’s fight against Grzegorz Proksa last year in September.

What’s unclear is whether Golovkin’s huge increase from the Rosado fight was due to Golovkin gaining more fans or because of Macklin’s large Irish fan base tuning in from the East coast to watch him fight. Rafael points out that HBO put more time and effort into marketing the Golovkin vs. Macklin fight, and that could also explain the better numbers.

HBO plans on televising Golovkin’s next two fights this year, provided that Golovkin’s promoters at K2 can find a decent opponent to face him. It’s doubtful that HBO will televise Golovkin’s fights if he takes on a weak opponent.

It’s going to have to be a quality guy and that may be difficult for K2 to dig up if they’re looking in the middleweight division. There are really not a lot of good fighters in this weight division when you exclude the champions.

Here are some options for Golovkin’s next fight:

Felix Sturm
Andy Lee
Martin Murray
Darren Barker
Hassan N’Dam
Daniel Jacobs
Marco Antonio Rubio
Matt Korobov
Curtis Stevens

Most of the fighters would likely pass on a fight with Golovkin, and if they didn’t, their promoters sure would. Guys train for years just to get a title shot, yet they’ll turn it down if a champion that is too good offers them a shot like Golovkin.

Many of these guys aren’t going to say yes when they know that their odds of winning are going to slim at best. Of that bunch, I think Stevens and N’Dam would say yes to a fight with Golovkin.

The rest I imagine would say no to a fight with him, even though it would be televised on HBO and it would give them a lot of notoriety by taking the fight.



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