By Allan Fox: Last Saturday night’s fight between middleweight sluggers David Lemieux 33-2, 31 KOs) and Gabriel Rosado (21-9, 13 KOs) averaged 908,000 viewers with a peak of 1.161 million on HBO, according to Dan Rafael of ESPN. These are good numbers for a fighter like Lemieux, who was making his U.S debut.
Before this fight, he was known mostly to hardcore boxing fans in the U.S. If he can continue to bring in good numbers on HBO then a future fight between him and WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin will be a big success for HBO.
They’re going to need to build up the fight a little by having Lemieux face some other well-known middleweights before they make that fight, but it should be a good one at some point as long as Lemieux doesn’t get beaten before he gets to the fight.
The undercard fight between middleweights Hugo Centeno Jr and James De La Rosa averaged 750,000 viewers with a peak of 815,000. The clash between light welterweights Thomas Dulorme and Hank Lundy averaged 672,000 with a peak of 778,000.
“Per Nielsen: Lemieux-Rosado on @HBOboxing averaged 908k viewers, peaking at 1.161M. It was Lemieux’s HBO and US debut. #boxing,” Rafael said on his twitter. “Also on @HBOboxing Saturday: Centeno-DeLaRosa co-feature averaged 750k viewers (815k peak). Dulorme-Lundy averaged 672k (778k peak).”
Lemieux was simply too strong for Rosado, as he bludgeoned him with huge power shots for 9 rounds before the ringside doctor decided that Rosado had taken enough punishment in the 10th and chose to stop the fight in that round.
Rosado looked good at times, but he couldn’t handle Lemieux’s big left hooks and right hands. Rosado was knocked down in the 2nd round, and his left eye was swollen badly in that round.
After the fight, Rosado said that he had problems seeing out of the eye as the fight went on, and he felt that was the main reason why he wasn’t able to out-box Lemieux and get the win.
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