By Ronnie Nathanielsz

The battle for the WBC Diamond Belt between WBO super bantamweight/junior featherweight champion Nonito “The Filipino Flash” Donaire and Japan’s WBC champion emeritus Toshiaki Nishioka last October 14 over ABS-CBN Channel 2 turned in tremendous TV ratings.

Kantar Media reported that the ratings for Total Philippines was 33.88 percent while the Total Urban figure was 31.61 percent and the Total Rural 36.90 percent.

Broken down, the ratings showed a 26.35 percent in Mega Manila, 28.89 percent in Metro Manila and 22.88 percent in the Suburbs.

The Total Balance of Luzon registered a 32.72 rating while the Urban Balance was 34.25 and the Rural Balance 31.82.

Kantar Media said that Total North Luzon turned in a 32.38 rating with Urban North Luzon seeing a 31.65 rating.

The TV ratings in the Visayas and Mindanao which are hotbeds of boxing were even more remarkable.

According to Kantar Media, Urban Visayas turned in a rating of 38.56 for the clash between Donaire and Nishioka while Rural Visayas was an even higher 42.91 percent.

In Mindanao, the television ratings reached its highest.

The Total Mindanao figure was 41.26 percent with Urban Mindanao turning in a 41.31 percent and Rural Mindanao  41.23 percent.

While the ABS-CBN “Pinoy Pride” series has done well in the past the television ratings for the Donairw-Nishioka  clash were the best so far.

Vice President for Sports Peter Musngi is hoping that the battle for the vacant WBO title between AJ “Bazooka” Banal and Thailand’s rugged Pungluang Sor Singyu will surpass the ratings of the Donaire-Pungluang Sor Singyu when they clash for the vacant EBO title this October.