By Dan Ambrose: IBO/WBA 160 pound champion Gennady Golovkin (33-0, 30 KOs) brought in respectable numbers on HBO last Saturday for his mismatch against the light-hitting but loud-talking Willie Monroe Jr. (19-2, 6 KOs) at the Forum in Inglewood, California.
The Golovkin-Monroe fight averaged 1.338 million viewers with a peak of 1.474 million on HBO, making it the third highest viewed fight on the network this year, according to Dan Rafael. The numbers for the Golovkin vs. Monroe fight weren’t nearly as good as Saul “Canelo” Alvarez’s recent mismatch against James Kirkland, but Golovkin also hasn’t fought Floyd Mayweather Jr. in the past like Canelo has in order to make him a bigger name with casual boxing fans.
If Golovkin had a huge fan base like Canelo has in the U.S, he’d likely be bringing in well over 2 million viewers each time he fights. But even though Golovkin didn’t come from nearby Mexico like Canelo in his upbringing, his numbers on HBO are still very, very impressive.
The fact that Golovkin could bring in such good ratings against little known former 2014 Boxcino tournament winner Willie Monroe really shows you how popular Golovkin is becoming.
The co-feature bout between WBC World flyweight champion Roman Gonzalez and Edgar Sosa brought in a respectable average of 961,000 viewers with a peak of 1.018 million. These numbers are very good for a fight that took place at flyweight. You wouldn’t think that a fight in the flyweight division would bring in huge numbers like this, but it tells you about the kind of potential that Gonzalez has in terms of becoming a huge star on HBO.
What would be interesting in the future would be to see HBO pairing Golovkin with Roman Gonzalez for September and then again in December. That would be a good way of increasing both of their popularity with boxing fans on HBO. Gonzalez doesn’t take punishment in his fights, and there’s no reason why he couldn’t stay as busy as Golovkin. The only difficulty would be for good enough opponents to be found to make it interesting. Gonzalez might need to look for guys outside of his weight class in the super flyweight and bantamweight divisions if he wants to increase his chances of getting an interesting opponent for his next fight this year. WBO super flyweight champion Naoya Inoue would be a great fight, as would WBA bantamweight champion Jamie McDonnell, Randy Caballero or Shinsuke Yamanaka.
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