by David P. Greisman

Not only does Gennady Golovkin attract crowds from coast to coast in New York City and Southern California, but the power-punching middleweight titleholder also continues to be a reliable ratings draw for HBO.

Golovkin’s sixth-round technical knockout over Willie Monroe this past Saturday had an average audience of 1.338 million viewers, peaking at 1.474 million people, according to ratings estimates compiled by Nielsen Media Research.

That’s a slight bump up from Golovkin’s previous primetime appearance on HBO, a two-round win over Marco Antonio Rubio in October that had an average of 1.304 million viewers. Golovkin’s win over Martin Murray this past February took place in Europe and was split between a live HBO broadcast during the day and a replay later that evening.

It was also HBO’s third-highest rating of 2015. The highest, of course, belongs to the May 9 card featuring Canelo Alvarez vs. James Kirkland, which drew an exceptional average audience of 2.146 million viewers, peaking at nearly 2.3 million. After that came Wladimir Klitschko’s win over Bryant Jennings on April 25, which had an average of 1.637 million viewers and peaked at 1.742 million.

This was Golovkin’s eighth appearance on the network. His ratings since his debut are:

- September 2012, vs. Gregorz Proksa — 685,000 viewers

- January 2013, vs. Gabriel Rosado — 813,000 viewers

- June 2013, vs. Matthew Macklin — 1.097 million viewers

- November 2013, vs. Curtis Stevens — 1.41 million viewers

- July 2014, vs. Daniel Geale — 984,000 viewers

- October 2014, vs. Marco Antonio Rubio — 1.304 million viewers

- February 2015, vs. Martin Murray — 862,000 for the live late afternoon broadcast, 571,000 for the replay later that night

- May 2015, vs. Willie Monroe — 1.338 million viewers

On the undercard, flyweight champion Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez got a bit of a rub from being on the same broadcast. His HBO debut, a two-round destruction of Edgar Sosa, averaged 961,000 viewers and peaked at 1.018 million.

Pick up a copy of David’s book, “Fighting Words: The Heart and Heartbreak of Boxing,” at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsamazon or internationally at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsworldwide . Send questions/comments via email at fightingwords1@gmail.com