With the news coming down that Manny Pacquiao has signed to face Timothy Bradley on June 9 in Las Vegas, many casual boxing fans who care about Manny but only randomly hear about a lot of the other sport's top fighters may be wondering just who in the hell Timothy Bradley is. Allow us to give you a quick primer on Manny's opponent, and why you should care about this fight and take it very seriously.

Timothy Bradley is not Floyd Mayweather Jr, we can grant you that. Mayweather is an otherworldly talent and a superstar, while Bradley has to date simply established himself as the best 140-pound fighter in the world and has never made the crowds "ooh" and "aah" with exhibitions of skill or beautiful boxing.

But the 28-year-old Californian is more than a handful in the ring, and won't be any sort of pushover for Pacquiao.

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Marco Antonio Rubio is being sold as a major test for Julio Cesar Chavez Jr tomorrow night in San Antonio, live on HBO. But a deeper look reveals the veteran Mexican to be only a marginal step up from Chavez's recent opponents, if he's even a true step up at all.

There are a few reasons that Rubio is being sold this way:

1. Obviously, if everyone says, "Hey, come see Chavez fight another second- or third-tier middleweight," it's harder to sell tickets or get people to watch on TV.
2. Rubio has a nice knockout percentage.
3. Rubio was last seen by most knocking out a hyped prospect on ESPN last year.

These are decent enough reasons -- understandable, valid in some ways, but not exactly convincing if you go past the press releases and the HBO commercials for the fight.

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Nonito Donaire is a celebrated fighter, at least among diehard boxing fans who follow the sport closely. A phenomenal talent, the 29-year-old Donaire has won titles at flyweight and bantamweight, along with an interim belt at super flyweight. In every weight class, he has been considered the man to beat.

Now he moves up to super bantamweight for the first time, where his connections and fame bring him a vacant title fight in his first bout at 122 pounds. He'll face Puerto Rico's Wilfredo Vazquez Jr, a second-generation fighter who has never been considered a blue-chip prospect, and when last seen by most, was outfought by a faded Mexican star, Jorge Arce.

So much of the talk about Donaire in the last couple of weeks has been about what's next or what's in the future. Arce is being lined up as his next fight already, and there's been mention of Japan's Toshiaki Nishioka and Cuba's Guillermo Rigondeaux, too. (Promoter Bob Arum is interested in Rigondeaux vs Donaire, he says, but Donaire is not interested at all.)

There's even been chatter about Donaire facing Yuriorkis Gamboa, the world's best featherweight who appears headed to lightweight for an April bout with Brandon Rios.

But what about Vazquez? You'd almost think Donaire was fighting unopposed on Saturday.

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Dave Oakes previews this Saturday's British super-bantamweight title clash between champion Scott Quigg and challenger Jamie Arthur.

Carl Frampton impressed when defending his Commonwealth title for the first time last weekend. This Saturday his main domestic rival makes the first defence of his British title and he’ll be desperate for an impressive display to remind people why he’s regarded as the hottest young talent in the super-bantamweight division.

Scott Quigg is rightly considered the number one boxer in the division ahead of Frampton but he knows his Belfast foe isn’t far behind him and has been grabbing the headlines recently. Their burgeoning rivalry is great for boxing in Britain, and a future meeting between them could be massive if it’s given the correct time to build-up.

It has to be said there are plenty of interesting match-ups to be made in a division packed with talent; fighters like Rendall Munroe, Jason Booth, John Simpson, Ryan Walsh, Willie Casey and Alexei Collado are all in the mix. I’d leave the Frampton/Quigg fight for 18 months, both of them will be better for three or four more hard fights before facing each other in what could then be an eliminator for a world title.

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Dave Oakes previews this Saturday's super-bantamweight clash between Carl Frampton and Kris Hughes.

This weekend sees unbeaten Commonwealth champion Carl Frampton make the first defence of his title. He faces Scottish southpaw Kris Hughes at the York Hall, Bethnal Green.

Whilst boxing fans in Britain and Ireland are getting excited about a future meeting between Frampton and British champion Scott Quigg, the Belfast man knows he must keep his mind focused on the job in hand against Hughes. It remains to be seen when, if at all, Frampton and Quigg will meet. It could be later this year or further down the line when both have matured into world level operators, but both know any slip-up could put an end to any potential clash.

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Last July in Atlantic City, Rico Ramos got the opportunity to fight on HBO, and to fight for a world title in the 122-pound division, as Japan's Akifumi Shimoda came to the United States to defend the WBA belt and make a name for himself in American boxing.

The first five rounds were all Shimoda, as he simply looked like a vastly superior fighter who was ready for prime time, while Ramos, having just turned 24 and no major fights under his belt, looked inexperienced and a bit like he had a case of stage fright. The sixth round was competitive, with Ramos waking up a bit, but as the fight started again in the seventh, veteran judge and commentator Harold Lederman assessed Ramos for the HBO audience.

"Rico Ramos, to me, looks like a guy with 19 fights that's not ready for a world title fight," said Lederman. "I mean, he just seems lost in there. Running, circling, running away. He's letting Shimoda just press him, land the better shots, and [Ramos] is certainly not doing enough."

Lederman had given the sixth to Ramos, though he felt it was close, and his analysis was at that moment spot-on. Two minutes later, Ramos blasted Shimoda with a perfect left hook for the knockout victory.

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ESPN's Friday Night Fights returns tomorrow night for the 2012 season premiere from a familiar January haunt of the program, Mallory Square in Key West, with a 10-round super middleweight main event between the son of a former contender and a fighter who nearly pulled off a big upset in 2010.

Dyah Davis is the son of Howard Davis, the 1976 Olympic gold medalist in the lightweight division. Now 30, the late-blooming Dyah is looking to continue a climb up the ladder that didn't seem likely two years ago. After losing to fellow second generation fighter Aaron Pryor Jr and drawing with Francisco Sierra, Davis was matched on ShoBox with prospect Marcus "Too Much" Johnson in April 2011, and toppled the favored man for a career-best win.

[ Related: ShoBox Preview for Jan. 6, 2012 ]

Six months later, Davis defeated noted chin checker Darnell Boone. Now, he gets a chance as a main event fighter on Friday Night Fights, which is coming off of its best season in years, against a scrapper from Cut and Shoot, Texas, who has only been seen once by, well, just about everyone.

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Tomorrow night we'll be getting a double-dose of boxing from ESPN2 and Showtime, as Friday Night Fights is back on The Worldwide Leader (#2) and ShoBox returns to its actual purpose with a pair of good fights featuring prospects.

We'll have more on the ESPN2 card tomorrow morning, but right now let's talk about this ShoBox double-header. In the main event, undefeated lightweight prospect Luis Ramos Jr (20-0, 9 KO) takes on tough veteran Raymundo Beltran (25-5, 17 KO) in the 10-round fight, and this will be a chance to really see what Ramos has.

Ramos, 23, is a talented southpaw who has had a couple of decent wins already, but has also never looked truly exceptional or anything. In other words, we're not talking about what looks like a blue chip prospect, but he's young enough to continue to improve, too. He's got wins over Walter Estrada (UD-4), Cristian Favela (UD-6), and Allen Litzau (TKO-2), but we've gotten to learn more about him in his last three fights.

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