By Dan Ambrose: IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin’s fight against Britain’s Kell Brook (36-1, 25 KOs) last Saturday drew an average of 843,000 viewers on HBO with a peak of 907,000, according to Dan Rafael. The replay averaged 593,000. Those are good numbers for the HBO World Championship Boxing card considering that the Golovkin-Brook fight took place in the afternoon rather than the evening.
The ratings likely would have been much better if the fight had been shown live in the evening hours like normal events. It probably didn’t help Golovkin that he has fighting someone that isn’t well known with the casual fans in the U.S. Brook hasn’t been fighting in the U.S, so it was always going to be a problem to attract interest from the fans in the States with him as GGG’s opponent.
It was a good fight due to Brook landing some sharp punches in the first four rounds. He was able to hit Golovkin with stinging shots, and then get away before he could retaliate with his own punches. The fight changed though start in the 4th, as Golovkin put more pressure on Brook and started to land heavier shot. Brook did a good job of making Golovkin miss with his punches, but enough shots got through to affect Brook’s damaged right eye.
The constant moving that Brook did in round four seemed to tire him out as well. Brook looked pretty exhausted by the 5th. Golovkin caught Brook with a hard body shot early in the round that took all the air out of his tires. Brook was no longer able to move after getting hit hard to the body. The only thing Brook could do was creep along the ropes with his back against them and trying to make Golovkin miss. It didn’t work, as Golovkin was able to land some big shots that let to Brook’s corner throwing in the towel.
The Golovkin vs. Brook fight was televised on Sky Box Office pay-per-view in the UK, and it likely brought in a lot of buys. This was a great opportunity for Golovkin to make a lot of money in a risk free fight against a welterweight with not much power. Golovkin was seen by a lot of British boxing fans, and hopefully he won some new fans.
It wasn’t the type of performance that we’ve seen from Golovkin in the past with him obliterating his opponent right away, but he still got the TKO win in stopping Brook in the 5th round. The fight was halted after Brook’s trainer Dominic Ingle threw in the towel to have the referee stop the contest. Golovkin was hitting Brook virtually at will with shots, and nothing was coming back. Ingle had no choice but to have the fight stopped before his fighter was seriously hurt.
If Golovkin is going to bring in the big ratings on HBO, then he needs to make sure his fights are taking place in the evening, and against fighters that the fans can recognize. Golovkin can take care of that problem if he were able to fight the likes of Saul Canelo Alvarez, but thus far he’s had no luck in getting the 26-year-old Mexican star into the ring. Canelo has let Golovkin know that he’s the A-side in the equation, and that the fight will only take place when he wants it to.
The evening fight on HBO between Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez and WBC super flyweight champion Carlos Cuadras averaged 833,000 viewers on HBO with a peak of 951,000. That was pretty impressive for the 29-year-old Gonzalez, considering that Gonzalez was headlining for the first time in his career against a fighter that’s not well known to casual fans in Cuadras.
Gonzalez won the fight by a close 12 round unanimous decision despite suffering bad swelling on the right side of his face. Cuadras’ superior size and power advantage helped him lump Gonzalez up. However, Cuadras ultimately undermined his chances of winning the fight by electing to move and hold on a frequent basis in the second half of the fight. It was a strange move by Cuadras because he was fighting effectively when he was mixing it up more in the first half of the fight, but in the second half, he played it safe by moving and gave away the fight.