Ryota Murata's middleweight world title win over Hassan N'Dam was a major hit with the global audience, according to Top Rank.
According to Top Rank, who helped secure the fight's broadcasting rights to ESPN, tweeted that the total audience for the fight peaked at 30 million viewers. The company also said the fight had the highest viewership of 2017 on Fuji TV, the Japanese broadcast company that aired the fight on domestic television.
While Fuji TV garnered record numbers in viewership, the live American broadcast's numbers pale in comparison to Fuji TV's numbers. The fight was aired on ESPN2 live on the morning of October 22 as part of its "Top Rank Boxing on ESPN" series, but the fight only drew 220,000 viewers and a 0.09 rating in the 18-49 demographic, according to Showbuzz Daily. The 0.09 rating was 107th of the top 150 telecasts on cable for October 22.
Murata stopped N'Dam after seven rounds to capture the WBA "regular" middleweight title. It was a rematch from their first fight in May when N'Dam won a highly controversial split decision to first win the title.
On the event's undercard at the Ryōgoku Sumo Hall in Tokyo, Japanese world champions Ken Shiro and Daigo Higa retain their WBC light flyweight and flyweight titles, respectively, in their first title defenses.
