By Chris Williams: Former four division world champion Nonito Donaire (35-3, 23 KOs) successfully made weight on Thursday afternoon in coming in at 122lbs for his fight this Friday night against #1 WBO Cesar Juarez (17-3, 13 KOs) for their battle for the vacant WBO World super bantamweight title from the Coliseo Roberto Clemente, in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The 24-year-old Juarez also came in at 122lbs. The Donaire-Juarez fight will be televised on truTV.

The fight has taken a lot of criticism from boxing fans because the title that Donaire and Juarez will be fighting for is the WBO 122lb strap that was recently stripped from Guillermo Rigondeaux. Donaire’s fans and enablers feel that it doesn’t matter that Rigondeaux was stripped of his WBO title, because they feel that he’s not as popular as Donaire and can’t make the same kind of money that he can with him signed on with Top Rank.

They believe that it doesn’t matter that Rigondeaux is more talented than Donaire. The only thing that matters to some of these fans is that Donaire, a fighter they feel is more popular, gets to win back his former WBO title the easy way by taking on the little known Juarez for the strap. I can’t agree with these fans because I feel the important thing in boxing is who the best is in each division rather than which fighter has the biggest fan base.

It would be nice if the winner of the Donaire-Juarez fight were to face Rigondeaux in early 2016 so that they can at least establish that they’re a legitimate champion and not just someone who benefited from the World Boxing Organization stripping Rigondeaux.

Since Rigondeaux isn’t ranked in the WBO’s top 15 now, I’d have to say that the chances of the Donaire-Juarez winner facing him is zero, because the WBO doesn’t allow their champions to fight guys that aren’t ranked in the top 15 by the WBO.’s organization. That’s a lucky break for Donaire and Juarez, because it gives them a built in excuse for why they don’t have to face Rigondeaux.

In the co-feature weights, unbeaten lightweight contender Felix Verdejo (18-0, 13 KOs) weighed in at 134.6lbs for his fight against Josenilson Dos Santos (27-3, 17 KOs). The two fighters will be battling for the Verdejo’s WBO Latino lightweight title. For his part, Dos Santos weighed in at 134lbs.

Donaire’s promoter Bob Arum turns 84 this Friday, and he’ll be announcing the name of his fighter Manny Pacquiao’s next opponent for April 9th next year. Top Rank fighters Tim Bradley and Terence Crawford will be on hand for the announcement. It’s been rumored that Bradley will be the one that will have his name announced by Arum, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he says it’s going to be Crawford. Out of the two fighters, Crawford needs the Pacquiao fight a lot more than Bradley does.

Bradley has already fought Pacquiao twice, and he’s benefitted about as much as he could from those fights. I can’t say that Pacquiao has had the Midas touch with Bradley’s career the way Oscar De La Hoya did in turning both Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Pacquiao into PPV starts after fighting them. It would still help make Crawford a little more popular by fighting Pacquiao to where he’d like bring in good ratings for his fights on regular HBO.