By Keith Idec

Jermall Charlo’s fight Saturday night drew lower viewership than the WBC middleweight champion’s previous appearance on Showtime.

A Nielsen Media Research report released Tuesday revealed that a peak audience of 434,000 tuned in to watch Charlo beat Brandon Adams in the main event of a “Showtime Championship Boxing” tripleheader from NRG Arena in Houston, Charlo’s hometown. Their 12-round, 160-pound championship match was watched by an average audience of 379,000.

The last time Charlo boxed on Showtime, his brief bout with Hugo Centeno Jr. drew an average audience of 545,000. Charlo knocked out Centeno in the second round of that scheduled 12-rounder in April 2018 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn to win the WBC’s interim middleweight title.

The Charlo-Centeno contest was the second fight of a three-bout broadcast, though. The main event that night – a 12-round majority draw between welterweights Adrien Broner and Jessie Vargas – drew a peak audience of 891,000 and an average audience of 782,000.

The 29-year-old Charlo (29-0, 21 KOs) was considered a heavy favorite over Los Angeles’ Adams (21-3, 12 KOs), which likely impacted viewership Saturday night.

The show headlined by Charlo and Adams also went head-to-head with DAZN’s stream of a card that featured WBO middleweight champion Demetrius Andrade’s 12-round points defeat of Maciej Sulecki in the main event from Dunkin Donuts Center in Providence, Rhode Island.

Nielsen doesn’t track viewership for streaming services. DAZN doesn’t release viewership figures, either.

Showtime’s tripleheader also included Erickson Lubin’s fourth-round knockout of Zak Attou in a WBC 154-pound elimination match. The broadcast began with Claudio Marrero’s unanimous-decision victory over Eduardo Ramirez in a 12-round WBA featherweight eliminator.

Charlo, who headlined a show in his hometown for the first time, didn’t score a knockout, yet defeated Adams soundly.

Two judges credited Charlo for winning all 12 rounds (120-108, 120-108). A third judge scored 11 of the 12 rounds for Charlo (119-109).

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.