NEW YORK (AP) -- The first fight at Yankee Stadium in more than three decades generated the highest rating of the year for HBO, which broadcast the ballpark doubleheader. The main event that saw Miguel Cotto defeat Yuri Foreman for the junior middleweight title, along with Vanes Martirosyan's victory over Joe Greene on the undercard, generated a 3.9 rating for the premium cable network. That equates to about 1.9 million viewers between the live telecast Saturday night and the replay Sunday morning. The rating measures the percentage of all homes with televisions tuned into a program. It was the first night of boxing at Yankee Stadium since September 1976, when Muhammad Ali defeated Ken Norton at the old ballpark that has since been torn down.
1.9 for the fight plus the replay is pretty terrible to be the best of the year. But it can't be the highest, it is impossible that 1.2 million PPV buys didn't put at least 3 million asses into seats, people don't watch $50 fights alone.
Not a surprise. Cotto has plenty of fans.... Plenty. Which is why I don't understand when Pac fans try to act like Floyd-Shane outdoing Pac-Cotto is somehow because Shane is more popular than Cotto. Ridiculous. Other than Pac, Floyd, and Pavlik, I don't think anyone American outdoes Cotto, unless I'm forgetting someone.
I don't think Pavlik outdoes Cotto at all. Cotto might have plenty of fans, but Shane Mosley's name is more recognizable among casual fans. I can ask my dad who Shane Mosley is and he'll have heard the name. If I ask him Cotto, he won't. Also, Floyd and Mosley have a long history. They've been calling each other out for 10 years. Two years ago the only one who thought Pac could fight Cotto one day was PacDbest there's a reason that people thought Mayweather vs Mosley would do over 2Million PPV buys even though Mayweather did 1M against Marquez.
Yeah the reason was that not many people thought mayweather v marquez would be competitive yet it still did 1million. So if you throw in a competitive opponent like mosley it should have doubled that. But those of us who actually understand boxing instead of watching it on a casual level would know mosley has never been a box office fighter, we saw this with his two fights with a prime oscar. That should have been a clear indication not to invest to much expectation from the mosley brand especially with the talk of the fight breaking ppv records..
I think people had invested too much expectations in the Mayweather brand as well. You can't just put all that on the Mosley brand and give credit to Floyd only. If Mayweather and Mosley didn't have a long running history going back ten years, and if Mosley's name was not so recognizable to the average sports fan, that fight wouldn't have sold as much as it did. Not to mention that Mosley going into to the ring to call out Floyd after the Marquez fight probably boosted the sales as well.
Sometimes i miss that delusional *******. Its crazy how he got so many predictions right. However i dont see his prediction of Pac beating PBF coming through.
How can you think that?...Cotto sells out MSG and puts 22,000 people in Yankee Stadium while Pav is only able to sell out that much smaller arena Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City. And Cotto PPV numbers are better as well.