Garcia-Herrera fight draws big ratings on Showtime

By Boxing News - 03/18/2014 - Comments

YouTube video
By Allan Fox: Last Saturday’s fight between WBA/WBC light welterweight champion Danny Garcia and Mauricio Herrera reportedly brought in 1.1 million viewers on Showtime, which makes it one of the highest viewed boxing events of the year. The card also had unbeaten heavyweight Deontay Wilder battling Malik Scott in the co-feature bout, and that fight definitely helped the ratings for the card.

Overall, it was a highly disappointing card due to the controversy surrounding the judges’ decision in giving Garcia a 12 round majority decision instead of giving the win to the arguably more deserving Herrera. The Showtime broadcasting team all had Herrera winning the fight, as did most fans on the major boxing website forums. Garcia was constantly on the back foot from the pressure that Herrera was putting on him in the fight, and he was hit with jab frequently when trying to get his offense started.

Later on in the fight, Herrera bloodied Garcia’s nose and reddened his face. Garcia was still landing some big shots every now and then, but Herrera did by far the better work in taking control of the action. It’s hard to understand what the three judges were thinking in not giving the fight to Herrera. It could be that they had already made up their minds ahead of time that Herrera was going to lose, so they didn’t bother to keep their eyes open to what actually took place in the fight itself.

As for the Deontay-Scott fight, Deontay scored a strange-looking 1st round knockout in which he hit Scott with a slapping left hook following by a right hand that was partially blocked. Scott went down from the left hook that landed, but it looked suspicious to a lot of fans due to the lack of power in the shot. It was a temple shot and that might explain why Scott was knocked out so easily. But fans definitely weren’t happy about that outcome, and they also weren’t happy with the main event fight results.

It’s good that the fight card brought in good ratings, but it’s bad that fans weren’t happy with the main event and co-feature fight results.



Comments are closed.