Tim Bradley rose from a 12th-round knockdown to defeat Ruslan Provodnikov by unanimous decision on Saturday. The HBO-televised fight delivered strong ratings along with intense action and drama.
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Bradley-Provodnikov delivers
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Tim Bradley's HBO-televised unanimous decision victory over Ruslan Provodnikov on Saturday delivered 1.2 million viewers, the network announced on Tuesday. Bradley survived several wobbly moments and a 12th-round knockdown to retain his WBO welterweight title. The numbers matched HBO's audience of the previous Saturday when Bernard Hopkins scored a unanimous decision over Tavoris Cloud to win the IBF light heavyweight title at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Bradley-Provodnikov peaked with an audience of 1.4 million viewers during the height of the action. The buzz over the Bradley-Provodnikov fight led to the following morning's viewership of 274,000 for the Sunday replay. That figure was a 57-percent improvement over the replay of Hopkins-Cloud. HBO's next main event fight is the March 30 return bout of October's bloody Fight-of-The-Year-caliber clash between junior welterweights Brandon Rios and Mike Alvarado. Rios (31-0-1, 23 knockouts) became the first man to stop Alvarado (33-1, 23 KOs), doing so by seventh-round knockout.
Photo by Naoki Fukuda Lem Satterfield can be reached at lemuel.satterfield@gmail.com
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