By Chris Williams: With Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. pulling out of this Saturday’s fight card, it means that Nonito Donaire’s fight against former WBA bantamweight champion Wladimir Sidorenko (22-2-2, 7 KO’s) will be pushed up to the main event for the fight. That seems like a nice little mismatch to me. The other halfway decent fight on the card is WBC lightweight champion Humberto Soto (53-7-2, 32 KO’s) fighting lightweight contender Urbano Antillon (28-1, 20 KO’s).

That actually is a better fight in my view than the Sidorenko vs. Donaire bout, but it’s still not all that interesting given that Antillon was recently handily beaten by Miguel Acosta last year in a 9th round stoppage in July, So basically we got Soto facing some guy that was recently beaten up.

Boy, I’m not thrilled at seeing this fight. The card is still, as far as I know, going for the asking price of $44 on pay-per-view, even though Chavez Jr. pulled out of the fight with a sudden last second illness. I don’t think the fight card was worth my than 99 cents even with the non-champion Chavez on the card, but with him off, it loses interest for me.

I was hoping to see Pawel Wolak expose Chavez and give him a nice beating to end the Chavez Jr. hype machine. But with Chavez off the card, it’s not nearly as interesting to see a handful of bouts for the steep asking price of $44. I love boxing but I don’t like to pay a ton of money to see fighters that aren’t huge stars.

Donaire has done nearly zero since beating Vic Darchinyan several years ago, and I don’t see him as a number #1 PPV attraction. For that kind of money, I’d like to see Manny Pacquiao take on Floyd Mayweather Jr. I see the Donaire-Sidorenko fight as being a nice undercard fight on ESPN Friday Night Fights, and I don’t even see it as a nice fight. Sidorenko has lost two out of his last three fights. That kills the interest for me.