Gary Russell Jr. vs. Oscar Escandon Averages Less Than 500,000 Viewers
WBC featherweight champion Gary Russell Jr.'s title defense Oscar Escandon led Showtime's television ratings on a busy night for boxing on Showtime.
Russell vs. Escandon drew an average of 481,000 viewers in the main event of the second boxing card the network broadcasted on May 20. The fight, which saw Russell knock out Escandon in the seventh round, peaked at 517,000 viewers, which is still nowhere near as good as HBO's broadcast of the Terence Crawford vs. Felix Diaz fight, which peaked at more than a million viewers.
In the co-feature bout, and certainly the most newsworthy fight of the weekend, Andre Dirrell vs. Jose Uzcategui averaged 354,000 viewers on Showtime with a peak of 459,000. Dirrell won a vacant super middleweight title by eighth round DQ after Uzcategui punched him just as the bell rang to end the eighth round and he was ruled unable to continue. Leon Lawson Jr., Dirrell's uncle and assistant trainer, stormed across the ring and punched Uzcategui's face.
The light welterweight contender between Rances Barthelemy and Kiryl Relikh had an average of 267,000 viewers with a peak of 295,000. Barthelemy defeated Relikh via unanimous decision.
Gervonta Davis' IBF junior lightweight title defense vs. Liam Walsh, which was fought in England and shown on tape delay, averaged 228,000 viewers with a peak of 253,000. Davis knocked out Walsh in the third round in Davis' first title defense.
