The viewership and ratings are in for Jamel Herring's first world title win on ESPN.
According to Showbuzz Daily, the May 25 Top Rank on ESPN card from Kissimmee, Florida, headlined by Herring's WBO super featherweight title win, averaged 556,000 viewers (171,000 viewers in the 18-49 demographic) and drew a 0.38 household rating. The fight had to compete directly with Game 6 of the NBA Eastern Conference Finals between the Toronto Raptors and Milwaukee Bucks, which averaged 6.234 million viewers on TNT.
Herring outboxed Masayuki Ito throughout 12 rounds to win a unanimous decision to become the new WBO super featherweight champion, ending Ito’s run as the world champion after 10 months as the titleholder. Ito only defended the title once which was a stoppage win against Evgeny Chuprakov last December.
In the co-main event and opening bout of the ESPN telecast, former two-division world champion Jose Pedraza scored a ninth-round TKO win against Antonio Lozada Jr. Pedraza, who picked up the WBO Latino lightweight title with the win against Lozada, fought for the first time since losing to Vasiliy Lomachenko last December at Madison Square Garden.
ESPN’s next televised card will take place on June 8 in Reno, Nevada. The main event of that card is a WBO featherweight world title fight between Oscar Valdez and Jason Sanchez. The next Top Rank card on ESPN+ will take place on June 15 in Las Vegas headlined by Tyson Fury vs. Tom Schwarz.
