Golovkin-Geale HBO numbers not impressive, averages 984K viewers

By Boxing News - 07/29/2014 - Comments

golovkin994By Chris Williams: The stats are out for last Saturday’s HBO fight between WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin and Daniel Geale, and they’re less than spectacular. According to the Nielson ratings, Golovkin vs. Geale was the 8th most popular boxing fight for HBO in 2014. The fight averaged 984K viewers and peaked at 1.048M.

Dan Rafael of ESPN believes that the reason the ratings were less than tremendous was because the fight only lasted 3 rounds. But it might be the fact that Geale wasn’t a well-known opponent for Golovkin to be fighting. HBO blessed the fight, perhaps thinking that because Geale was a former IBF/WBA middleweight champion it would be a fight that could resonate with the casual boxing fans, but it doesn’t work that way.

Geale is mainly known by hardcore boxing fans and by his fans in Australia. He’s not a household name in the U.S, so it was a fight that was doomed to bring in average views. You’re not going to get huge ratings when you bring in a guy from another country that casual boxing fans in America has never heard of before.

The casual boxing fans that did know of Geale probably only remembered him as the guy that looked poor in getting beaten by Darren Barker last year on HBO from Atlantic City, New Jersey. Recycling Geale only a year later to be an opponent for Golovkin was HBO asking for trouble. You don’t do that if you want big ratings.

Golovkin would have been better off fighting someone that had a chance to test his chin like Marco Antonio Rubio. He’s not well known either, but at least Rubio would have had the chance to make it interesting before folding.

What we learned from the low ratings for the Golovkin-Geale fight is that HBO and K2 Promotions are going to need to do a better job of trying to dig up quality opposition to put in with Golovkin, because dragging out aging ex-champions isn’t going to get the job done. They need to bring in guys like Miguel Cotto, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, Julio Cesar Chavez Jr or Andre Ward so that fans will sit up and take notice of Golovkin’s fights.

The Golovkin-Geale fight was like watching a lion chase a scared rabbit around the ring for 3 rounds. It wasn’t even a fight, especially after Geale was knocked down in the 2nd. From that point, it was unwatchable because Geale just running and trying not to get hit again.



Comments are closed.