Stevenson-Bellew, Kovalev-Sillakh draws 1.3 million viewers on HBO

By Boxing News - 12/04/2013 - Comments

kovalev57By Allan Fox: Last Saturday’s card headlined by WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson (23-1, 20 KO’s) vs. Tony Bellew (20-2-1, 12 KO’s) with WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev (23-0-1, 21 KO’s) vs. Ismayl Sillakh (21-2, 17 KO’s) in the co-feature, reportedly drew 1.305 million viewers on HBO, according to Dan Rafael. These are big numbers and it proves that Stevenson is becoming a draw in the United States on HBO.

Having Kovalev on the undercard obviously helped because he’s picking up a lot of fans too with the way that he’s knocking out everyone he faces. However, most of the fans that tuned in were likely watching to see Stevenson fight because he’s better known than Kovalev in the U.S. from his previous fights against Chad Dawson and Chad Dawson.

Both Kovalev and Stevenson are two fighters that could become big stars in the U.S. if they can keep winning in spectacular form. But they need to face each other soon if they want to maximize their popularity because their fights are a little too one-sided due to the low level opposition that they’re stuck fighting at 175.

The eventual winner of the Kovalev-Stevenson fight could find himself a popular fighter in the United States. They might not be quite to the level where they could start having their fights on pay-per-view, but they might not be too far from there. This is how guys like Miguel Cotto started. He was bringing in these kinds of ratings on HBO, and now he’s a PPV fighter.

Stevenson didn’t get a lot of help to attract fans for his fight last week because Bellew is an unknown. The same thing with Kovalev and his opponent Sillakh. Both of these fighters were facing guys that the casual fans aren’t familiar with, but the fight card still did amazingly well. It just shows you how quickly Stevenson and Kovalev are picking up fans in the U.S.



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