By Scott Gilfoid: In a real surprise, last Saturday night’s fight between IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (64-3, 53 KOs) and American Bryant Jennings (19-1, 10 KOs) brought in huge ratings for HBO Championship Boxing at Madison Square Garden in New York. The fight drew a peak of 1,742,000 viewers with a peak of 1,637,000 viewers, according to the Nielson ratings, making it the top boxing fight for 2015.
In fact, the fight is the biggest one on HBO since 2012. Granted, it was on regular HBO and not pay-per-view, but it’s still a big deal that a fight between Wladimir and Jennings was able to bring in those type of numbers. Wladimir hadn’t fought in the United States in seven years since his fight against Sultan Ibraginov in 2008.
Jennings, a virtual unknown to a lot of American boxing fans, was still an interesting enough opponent for fans to get excited about the bout. You can only wonder what kind of numbers a fight between Wladimir and WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder would bring for HBO if the two of them wind up facing each other in 2016 like with Wladimir has been talking about.
Showtime Championship Boxing brought in bigger numbers in 2013 with their pay-per-view fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. That fight brought in 2.2 million buys.
The co-feature bout between welterweight contender Sadam Ali and Francisco Santana also brought in good numbers with a peak of 1,134,000 viewers and an average of 1,000,000 viewers. That’s pretty good for s fight involving two fighters that only hardcore boxing fans are familiar with. Ali didn’t look that great, but he at least did well enough to get the victory.
Wladimir won the fight against Jennings by the scores of 118-109, 116-111 and 116-111. The fight was somewhat close, as Wladimir was unable to land his power shots and was stuck throwing jabs most of the fight. Jennings did a good job of blocking almost everything that Wladimir threw in the fight. But where Jennings made a dreadful mistake is spending too much time focusing on his defense and not enough time on his offense. He fought like he was scared of getting hit by Wladimir, and this left him looking like a sparring partner rather than a true challenger.
Jennings did throw a few token body shots in the fight, but it wasn’t nearly enough for him to get the victory. The fight would have been more one-sided if the referee hadn’t taken a point off from Wladimir in the 10th for him clinching too much.
What was really disappointing about Jennings was the fact that he didn’t really even try to score a knockout in the last three rounds of the fight. By the 10th, it was pretty clear that Jennings needed a knockout to win. But instead of going after Wladimir, Jennings played in safe in the championship rounds and looked to survive rather than win. In the 12th, it was Wladimir bouncing on his toes looking to score a knockout instead of Jennings.
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