Fight Camp floundering audience needs Whyte-Povetkin to deliver

It’s the final scheduled week of Eddie Hearn’s vanity, brainchild to bring Matchroom Boxing back to the U.K. called his “Fight Camp” series. However, with three cards in the books, it’s obvious that Hearn saving his most prominent fighters/bouts for last will have a big hole to dig out of.

This, after Friday night’s show at the backyard of the Matchroom Headquarters property, which featured now 13-0, Commonwealth Middleweight champ Felix Cash stopping Jason Welborn in the 5th round of the main event. And, unfortunately the television viewership dipped 20% from week one:

Preliminary ratings for Eddie Hearn’s Friday show, the third edition of Fight Camp on Sky Sports: 48,000 average with a 127,000 peak. Doesn’t include streaming or replays

— Mike Coppinger (@MikeCoppinger) August 16, 2020

Of course the floundering audience wasn’t  unexpected with Hearn essentially having some up and coming fighters battling against  “club” or “circuit” fighters and not his biggest names during the roll out in the first part of the series.

That will not be the case this Saturday night, when the main event features popular and prominent English heavyweight Contender, Dillian Whyte, who has been reinstated as the number one contender by the WBC. And, he will take on Russian former IBF world Heavyweight champ, Alexander Povetkin, in a 12-round eliminator bout.

The different variable for Saturday night’s show is that for the first time it won’t be offered on the basic cable addition of Sky Sports, but rather, a pay-per-view for $19.95.

Whyte (27-1, 18 KOs) will battle Povetkin, who is 35-2-1 with both fighters having previously been stopped by Unified Heavyweight champ, Anthony Joshua. The winner is hoping for a possible rematch with Joshua or to get a shot at WBC champ, Tyson Fury, down the road in 2021.

Yet, this will obviously be a challenge/experiment to try to reignite customers to pay extra for this anticipated battle. Hearn is also looking to offset some of his cost for the fighters in the production of the broadcast by having the public buy into it.

Further, Matchroom has scheduled Undisputed women’s Lightweight champion, popular Irish fighter, Katie Taylor, in a rematch from last June at Madison Square Garden against German former World Champ Delphine Persoon. Those two fought a highly competitive battle that Taylor won with a narrow decision to improve to 15-0.

Hearn reiterated to the media on Monday that he would like to bring the “Fight Camp” series back, potentially next summer.

And, obviously any venue or location will be enhanced, if fans can be present which they have not been able to during the early stages of the resumption of the sport, post-Covid-19.

Still, if the Whyte – Povetkin main event flops as a pay-per-view offering, then there’s no other way to spin the British promoter’s elaborate idea that cost millions to setup, stage and produce, other than- it will have been largely a failure with the British boxing consumers, much less sports fans, who are the ultimate judge.