By Chris Williams: The October 13th fight card featuring two Top Rank bouts featuring former WBA World lightweight champion Brandon Rios (30-0-1, 22 KO’s) making his light welterweight debut against unbeaten 140 pound contender Mike Alvarado (33-0, 23 KO’s) and IBF/WBO super bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire (29-1, 18 KO’s) defending his titles agaisnt 36-year-old former WBC super bantamweight champion Toshiaki Nishioka (39-4-3, 24 KO’s) has now been made official on HBO at the Home Depot Center, in Carson, California.

The Rios-Alvarado bout should be a really good one because Rios is moving up in weight to fight one of the best sluggers in the light welterweight division in 32-year-old Alvarado. This should be a real war because Rios used to be one of the best sluggers at 135, although we never got a chance at seeing how good Rios was because he never took on anyone like Antonio DeMarco, Juan Manuel Marquez or Miguel Vazquez. Rios’ toughest opponent at 135 was Richard Abril, who fought well enough to deserve a lopsided decision against Rios. Instead, however, Rios won a very controversial 12 round split decision last April in a fight that boxing fans are still talking about.

Rios may have seen his best days and it’s highly likely that his move to the light welterweight division will end in failure for him. At this weight he doesn’t have any real advantage like he did in fighting at lightweight.

The Donaire-Nishioka fight would have been a really great fight if it had taken place three years ago when the southpaw Nishioka was fighting at a really high level. That’s when Nishioka, 36, picked up his best win of his career, a 3rd round stoppage victory over Jhonny Gonzalez. Since then, Nishioka hasn’t beaten anyone spectacular and he’s started to show signs of aging. In his last fight, Nishioka struggled in beating a way past his best Rafael Marquez last October.

Perhaps for his past accomplishments rather than his recent ones, Nishioka is rated #1 by Ring Magazine. However, I see this as an outdated ranking that needs to be adjusted in a big way. I see Nishioka behind the following fighters:

#1 Guillermo Rigondeaux
#2 Abner Mares
#3 Nonito Donaire
#4 Wilfredo Vazquez Jr.
#5 Rico Ramos

I see Nishioka as another safe fight for Donaire. I can understand this fight being made three years ago, but now, not with Nishioka looking completely awful in his last bout against Marquez. Nishioka just looks like an aging fighter that is now very beatable.