(Photo: Naoki Fakuda) By Chris Williams: IBF/WBO super bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire (29-1, 18 KO’s) has been saying a lot of nice things about his 36-year-old opponent Toshiaki Nishioka (39-4-3, 24 KO’s) lately as the two fighters slowly get ready for their October 13th clash at the Home Depot Center, in Carson, California.

Nishioka will have been out of the ring for an entire year by the time he faces Donaire in October, and he looked less than impressive in having to battle incredibly hard to defeat 37-year-old Rafael Marquez last October. Marquez, once a great fighter, has seen better days and has clearly lost a few steps. You can say the same thing for Nishioka as well. How many it’s hard to tell, because he really never fought a lot of premium guys even in the prime of his career.

There’s just a couple fighters that Nishioka beat that kind of jump out at you, like his win over Jhonny Gonzalez and Rendall Munroe. That’s about it in terms of big wins for Nishioka unfortunately. That’s why you can’t really ever know how good Nishioka was because there wasn’t someone like Abner Mares, Guillermo Rigondeaux and Anselmo Moreno to test him.

Donaire said to RingTV “Not does he [Nishioka] have speed, power and experience, but he’s also a southpaw. So there are a lot of factors as far as the style that I have not seen in other opposition.”

Donaire said a lot more than that about Nishioka, and it seems as if he’s acting like a promoter instead of a fighter in building up his opponent. When I see that kind of thing it gets my spider senses tingling to where I start suspecting that there’s a cover up being done to give the impression that the fight will be more competitive than it probably will be. In judging how Nishioka looked against Marquez last October, I see Donaire winning easily. At this point, I think Nishioka would lose to past Donaire opponents Wilfredo Vazquez Jr., Omar Narvaez and Fernando Montiel. Nishioka is too slow and hittable now, and it’s not even interesting that Donaire is fighting him.

I’d much rather see Donaire fight guys that are actually relevant like Mares and Rigondeaux, instead of someone that’s on his way out of the game and hasn’t fought in a year.

The best part of the Donaire-Nishioka fight will be the undercard bout between Mike Alvarado and Brandon Rios. I see that as much better fight against more recognizable fighters than the Donaire vs. Nishioka bout. Both Rios and Alvarado are both still young, so it’s not like Donaire with his fight against an old name.