By Chris Williams: IBF/WBO super bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire (29-1, 18 KO’s) seems to be trying to build up his 36-year-old opponent Toshiaki Nishioka (39-4-3, 24 KO’s) by slathering on the compliments nice and thick ahead of their October 13th HBO televised fight at the Home Depot Center, in Carson, California.

Donaire said to RingTV “He [Nishioka] is the speed king, and I am the Filipino Flash. So there’s going to be a clash of speed and a clash of power as well. He has a tremendous straight punch.”

This is a bit much from Donaire. Nishioka is no way a speed king or anything close to that. From the many fights I’ve seen of Nishioka, I would categorize his speed as slightly below average. Nishioka is slow and it’s hilarious to see Donaire pumping up what I consider to be one of his worst attributes – his lack of hand speed. That’s like saying the opposite what the reality is. Nishioka isn’t fast, and I don’t see much of any real positives to like about his game. He’s good at mixing it up, but he’s never really beaten anyone really good except Jhonny Gonzalez, a fighter that can punch but who also can be knocked out as we saw in his losses to Gerry Penalosa and Israel Vazquez.

Nishioka isn’t a big puncher either. He’s got the knockout win against Gonzalez, but he’s had to go the distance with a lot of average fighters, and he’s so untested that it’s even funny. I know he’s older now and has lost a step, but I think he’d have loss to guys like Abner Mares and Guillermo Rigondeaux by knockout no matter what stage of his career. He’s got a bunch of losses and draws as it is against less than impressive fighters, and it goes without saying that Nishioka would have problems if he ever stepped inside the ring with Mares or Rigondeaux.