by David P. Greisman

The March 30 “Boxing After Dark” broadcast on HBO featuring another great battle between Brandon Rios and Mike Alvarado pulled in an average of 1.2 million viewers, according to ratings compiled by Nielsen Media Research.

Many more tuned in for this rematch than did for the first fight between the junior welterweight warriors — Rios-Alvarado 2 represented a 45 percent increase over their October bout, which had more than 800,000 viewers and was on the undercard to Nonito Donaire’s victory over Toshiaki Nishioka.

Though Rios-Alvarado 2 aired on a free preview weekend for HBO, Nielsen ratings only count homes that are subscribers to the network, according to an HBO spokesman.

That 1.2 million number is on par with HBO’s recent average, according to what network executives recently told Michael Woods of TheSweetScience.com.

And it lines up well with HBO’s other boxing broadcasts so far in 2013: Timothy Bradley vs. Ruslan Provodnikov did 1.2 million, Bernard Hopkins vs. Tavoris Cloud did 1.2 million, Adrien Broner vs. Gavin Rees did 1.4 million, and Gennady Golovkin vs. Gabriel Rosado pulled in 813,000.

A replay of Rios-Alvarado 2 will be shown on HBO2 tonight at 11 p.m. Eastern Time/11 p.m. Pacific Time.

David P. Greisman is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. Follow David on Twitter @fightingwords2 or send questions/comments via email at fightingwords1@gmail.com