Lara-Martirosyan 2 averages 491K viewers on Showtime

By Boxing News - 05/25/2016 - Comments

lara-charlo (18)

By Dan Ambrose: Last Saturda’s fight between WBA junior middleweight champion Erislandy Lara (23-2-2, 13 KOs) and #15 WBA challenger Vanes Martirosyan (36-3-1, 21 KOs) averaged just 491,000 viewers with a peak of 545,000 viewers, according to the Nielsen Media Research.

The Lara-Martirosyan fight was televised by Showtime Championship Boxing. The undercard was stacked well with the Charlo brothers facing B-level opponents in Austin Trout and John Jackson.

Lara, 33, won the fight by a 12 round unanimous decision by the scores 116-111, 116-111 and 115-112. The fight was a very boring one with Lara holding, running and throwing pot shots. Martirosyan didn’t help himself by standing in front of Lara and just waiting and waiting before finally throwing his shots. Martirosyan, 30, fought a dumb fight and gave away any chance he had of winning by failing to throw enough punches.

Lara probably needs to stop fighting fringe contenders if he wants to bring in the higher ratings. A second fight against Martirosyan would have made sense shortly after their first fight in 2012, but not now. The second fight was too late. Martirosoyan’s career is already tanking, and Lara’s career has been one of him being matched against poor opposition since his loss to Saul “Canelo” Alvarez in 2013.

The bad part about the news of the Lara-Martirosyan ratings being poor is that it undercuts the chances for Lara to get a fight against IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin. Lara called both Golovkin and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez out after the fight.

Lara went so far as to tell Golovkin that he should sit down at the negotiating table with him so that the two of them could make a fight between them. But with the low ratings for Lara’s fight against Martirosyan, it puts him in a bad position to ask for fights against Golovkin or Canelo.

Why would they want to fight Lara if he can’t bring in good ratings? His fight was boring with Martirosyan, and the ratings weren’t good enough to make up for the dull fight. At least if the fight brought in good ratings, then Lara could argue that he brings in the fans. But the fight did poorly in the ratings and is was boring to watch.

The co-feature bout between IBF junior middleweight champion Jermall Charlo and Austin Trout averaged 389,000 viewers with a peak of 471,000 viewers. Charlo won the fight by a 12 round unanimous decision. However, Charlo gassed out in the second half of the fight and fought timidly. It was not Charlo at his finest.

The fans got to see that Charlo can dish it out, but he doesn’t seem to take nearly as well. We saw Trout as the better fighter in the second half of the contest, as he was clearly command of the fight as it ended in the 12th. Charlo only proved that he can hit hard and fight well for the first six rounds. If his opponent is still there after the 6th and still fighting hard, Charlo doesn’t do that well.

Unbeaten Jermell Charlo’s fight against John Jackson averaged 328,000 with a peak of 360,000. Jermell stopped Jackson in the 8th round. Jermell was trailing in the fight at the time of the stoppage, and he had not fought well.