Fans are hopeful that a showdown between RING junior featherweight champ Nonito Donaire and WBC 122-pound titleholder Abner Mares can be made in 2013, according to a recent RingTV.com poll.

More than 70 percent  (72.7) of approximately 2000 votes chose “yes” when asked if the junior featherweight super-bout will happen next year.

Both fighters have expressed that they are willing to fight each other but a long-standing feud betwen their promoters, Top Rank (which promotes Donaire) and Golden Boy Promotions (which handles Mares), threatens to keep the battle-tested young veterans apart, which is probably why 27.3 percent of the voters don’t think the fascinating matchup will happen (at least not next year).

In his last fight, Donaire (30-1, 19 knockouts) won the vacant RING title with a ninth-round TKO of top-rated Toshiaki Nishioka. Mares (25-0-1, 13 KOs) just defended his WBC title with a hard-fought unanimous decision over highly respected WBA bantamweight beltholder Anselmo Moreno – a victory which enabled him to crack THE RING’s pound-for-pound ratings at No. 10.

Donaire, who has won major titles at flyweight, bantamweight and junior featherweight, is No. 5 on the magazine’s pound-for-pound list.