The David Morrell Jr.-Mario Cazares main event on the Minneapolis Armory card Sunday night was brief, yet it managed to draw a TV audience that was satisfactory for Fox and Premier Boxing Champions.
Morrell's knockout of Cazares at 2:32 of the first round drew an average of 1.3 million viewers, the second largest audience for a PBC televised event in 2021.
The previous high was 1.9 million watching Caleb Plant's victory over Minnesota's Caleb Truax on Jan. 30 in Los Angeles.
PBC management has gained a fondness for Minnesota as a boxing location and the Armory as a site. Jamal James, from Minneapolis, and Morrell Jr., a Cuban defector now located here, both are holding WBA titles. Truax also has been a headliner for Armory cards.
The next card here, on Aug. 7, will be a plunge for PBC. The main bouts will be announced next week and, for the first time since boxing returned to the remodeled Armory in April 2018, there will not be a headliner with a Minnesota connection.
What will remain the same will be service at the extra-long bars on both sides of the floor. Sources confirmed that the dollars spent at those locations by Sunday night's crowd of 3,770 was very impressive.
