Breaking: Lamont Roach Jr. vs. William Zepeda Sees Viewership Increase on TNT Sports

After William Zepeda’s (34-1, 27 KOs) dominant unanimous decision over Lamont Roach Jr. (25-2-3, 10 KOs) on August 1, which was streamed live on TNT Sports (U.S.) and on DAZN worldwide, the TNT Sports viewership numbers are now in.

FightsATW reached out to TNT Sports because no viewership numbers were released via a press release or social media post, as they had for their inaugural July 4 event. The PR rep for TNT Sports stated that they “don’t typically put out numbers for every single event or telecast” they broadcast, but they were willing to send over the information below.

• The Aug. 1 edition of The Fight was highlighted by strong viewership for its pair of world championship bouts, with Lamont Roach Jr. vs. William Zepeda averaging 748,000 viewers and Raymond Muratalla vs. Robson Conceição averaging 738,000 viewers
• The telecast peaked at 786,000 viewers during championship action, with the final two hours averaging 694,000 viewers, up 2% compared to the July 4 edition.
• The full The Fight telecast averaged 598,000 viewers, generating nearly six times the audience (+475%) of the same Saturday on TNT a year ago and nearly triple (+198%) TNT’s August 2025 time-period average.
• Across its Bleacher Report, House of Highlights and TNT Sports US social platforms, TNT Sports posted a 19% increase in video views and a 13% increase in impressions for boxing content for Fight Week content surrounding the 8/1 The Fight event.
• Overall, The Fight on 8/1 reached 3.2 million total viewers (includes weigh-in, press conference, and pre/post match coverage), on par with the first The Fight.
• The Fight series has reached 5.6 million total viewers to date for all fights (includes weigh-ins, press conferences, and pre/post match coverage).

When comparing the inaugural event and the one on August 1, the latter saw a slight dip, as the championship card peaked at 820,000 on July 4 versus 786,000 on August 1. That could be a direct reflection of one being a national holiday with gatherings taking place nationwide and the other being a typical Saturday night, but it also competed with WWE’s SummerSlam event in Minnesota, the company’s second-biggest event of the year behind WrestleMania. I only bring this up because some fans watch both and may have opted to watch SummerSlam rather than boxing that night.

Although the numbers on the surface aren’t enormous, it provides a platform for boxing to reach a casual audience on Saturday nights. Even with Roach and Zepeda not being household names, they still put up good numbers. Not to make another wrestling comparison, but WWE’s NXT (The CW) and AEW (TBS), which have been on network TV for quite some time, average about 600-800,000 viewers weekly, so The Fight is right on par with other weekly live sports that aren’t the major ones like MLB, NBA, etc. If the numbers can maintain right around where the first two events have been, it would be a good sign for boxing and would give the brass at TNT Sports hope of becoming more excited to have boxing on their network.

The third installment of The Fight takes place on September 4, when former unified heavyweight champion Andy Ruiz (35-2-1, 22 KOs), who recently signed with Matchroom Boxing, faces Damian Knyba (17-1, 11 KOs) in a scheduled 12-round fight. Heavyweight boxing has always attracted a casual audience, so we are only a few weeks away from seeing whether Ruiz vs. Knyba boosts viewership.

Abraham Gonzalez

Abraham Gonzalez is a 2x award-winning writer, International Boxing Hall of Fame voter, founder and publisher of FightsATW. His journalistic work has been published and used across several platforms, including online, network TV, and promotional companies. He is an alumnus of an American Public University and a full member of the Boxing Writers Association of America (BWAA). Abraham was the Managing Editor for NYFights, Big Fight Weekend, and contributed to The Ring Magazine, FanSidedMMA, and ProBoxTV.

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