This was a fight a lot of people were waiting for, probably a year. And it delivered. Sergio Martinez beating Julio Cesar Chavez in a middleweight title fight on HBO PPV last Saturday drew over half a million viewers (buyers) to the screen, way more than the initial estimations.

HBO assumed that Martinez’ first appearance on PPV and JCC’s first as a headliner will bring around 250,000, but initial numbers, which are always lower than the final amount, indicate that 475,000 people paid to watch the fight, generating a $25 million revenue from domestic television.

HBO PPV chief Mark Taffet – It’s an extremely solid number. I expect the figures to go up as we collect more of them. It significantly exceeded our original expectations of 250,000 buys. Fight fans had been talking about and looking forward to Chavez-Martinez for a year. The pay-per-view performance simply reflects that the fans got the fight they wanted.

According to HBO’s estimation, more than 2 million viewers watch the fight, which was pretty much all about Martinez abusing Chavez through the first nine-ten rounds. The 12 saw Chavez finally going at it, knocking down the Argentinian fighter twice, but not enough to impress the judges for his bad fight through the first minutes, or keep Martinez from reclaiming the WBC middleweight title belt.