By Eric Thomas: Dan Rafael is reporting that WBC junior middleweight champion Saul Alvarez’s recent 12th round TKO win over Britain’s Ryan Rhodes drew an incredible 1.6 million viewers on HBO’s Boxing After Dark (BAD), making it the largest amount of viewers since 2007 for a BAD broadcast.
Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. wasn’t far behind in capturing the World Boxing Council middleweight title against champion Sebastian Zbik, drawing 1.5 million viewers on HBO. These are very good numbers given that both Chavez Jr. and Alvarez are considered flawed fighters. Alvarez, 20, may turn out to be one of the best fighters in the division at some point in the future if he doesn’t grow out of the weight class like most younger fighters typically do as they age.
Chavez Jr., however, isn’t likely ever going to be the top guy at middleweight or whatever weight he eventually is forced to move up to. But it doesn’t seem to matter that Chavez Jr. is perceived to be a beatable fighter, he’s still getting huge ratings at least for now. That could change once Chavez Jr, is beaten for the first time or if he continues to have problems in the future.
Chavez Jr. will have to be matched carefully if they want him to stay unbeaten and that’s the whole problem. You can’t continue to match Chavez Jr. with weak opposition if they want to make money off of him. He has to be matched against quality guys. Alvarez has a rosier future because the junior middleweight division is weaker than the middleweight division, and he matches up well with most of the top fighters in the division.