Jose Pedraza breathed new life into his career atop a card which provided ESPN with its best rating for a boxing telecast in nearly a month.

The July 2 edition of Top Rank Boxing on ESPN averaged 350,000 viewers over the course of the five-fight, three-plus hour telecast according to Nielsen Media Research. Thursday’s show reached a peak audience of 448,000 viewers, coming at the 10:45-11:00pm ET block which coincided with the heart of the 10-round main event.

Puerto Rico’s Pedraza (27-3, 13KOs) scored two knockdowns en route to a dominant unanimous decision win over Brooklyn-based former title challenger Mikkel LesPierre in the evening’s headliner at MGM Grand Conference Center (‘The Bubble’) in Las Vegas. The win was the first for Pedraza in more than a year, when the former two-division titlist stopped Mexico’s Antonio Lozada in nine rounds last May in Kissimmee, Florida.

In between came a failed debut at junior welterweight for Pedraza, who dropped a 10-round decision to Jose Zepeda last September in Las Vegas. The former 130- and 135-pound looked settled in at the new weight versus LesPierre, with their rescheduled fight taking place at a 144-pound catchweight.

The bout also took place two weeks after its original target date. Their previously scheduled June 18 meet was scrapped on the day of the fight due to LesPierre’s manager, Jose Taveras testing positive for COVID-19. In turn, it served as a makeshift main event for another bout to fall prey to COVID, as Jamel Herring's 130-pound title defense versus Jonathan Oquendo was pushed off of the date and now due to take place July 14.

As far as ratings go, Pedraza's win proved to be worth the wait. The overall telecast average marked more than a 17% improvement from its preceding show, where Alex Saucedo’s 10-round win over Sonny Fredrickson topped a four-fight card averaging just 298,000 viewers.

Additionally, it provided the best performing Thursday night telecast since Top Rank began its closed-doors ‘Bubble’ series in June. The telecast average matches the second-best overall weeknight performance, bested only by the June 9 series debut—topped by unbeaten featherweight titlist Shakur Stevenson in a 5th round knockout of Puerto Rico’s Felix Caraballo—which played to a 397,000 viewership average, peaking at 609,000.

Philippines' Mike Plania scored a 10-round upset over Chicago's Joshua Greer atop a June 16 show which also averaged 350,000 viewers.

The July 2 show also lands just north of the overall series average to date. The card marked the 10th show to air live on ESPN, which has carried four each shows on Tuesday and Thursday from Las Vegas along with two Saturday shows live from Mexico City, which now average 340,900 viewers including last Thursday’s show.

The Saturday cards have been aided by strong lead-ins from UFC, in turn boasting high peaks but its overall average skewered as viewership (327,000 on June 20, 416,000 on June 27)  has rapidly declined over the course of each telecast.

Weeknight stateside offerings have provided the opposite trend, with the July 2 card providing activity in the right direction—much like Pedraza’s performance in relation to his career.

The next edition of Top Rank Boxing on ESPN airs Tuesday, July 7. Pedraza’s prior conqueror, Zepeda headlines the show, facing San Antonio’s Kendo Castaneda.

Jake Donovan is a senior writer for krikya360.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox