By Jim Dower: In a fight that failed to live up to the high billing that Top Rank had made it to be, IBF/WBO super bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire (30-1, 19 KO’s) had an incredibly easy time beating Japan’s Toshiaki Nishioka (39-5-3, 24 KO’s) in stopping him in the 9th round on HBO on Saturday night at the Home Depot Center, in Carson, California, USA.

Nishioka, 36, never really got off with his shots, as he averaged around 20 punches thrown per round and it was not a particularly interesting fight to watch from a spectators viewpoint. If you’re a Donaire fan you were probably happy to see him win so easily but it wasn’t a good fight for boxing.

Donaire knocked Nishioka down twice in the fight. He knocked Nishioka down in the 6th round from a left hook that caught Nishioka perfectly just as he was making one of his rare attempts at landing a shot. And in the 9th, Donaire flattened Nishioka with a right hand while backed against the ropes by Nishioka.

While Nishioka was able to get back to his feet and resume fighting, the referee changed his mind after initially allowing the fight to continue after Nishioka’s team threw in the towel. It was perhaps a wise decision for the fight to be stopped because Nishioka would have been finished off in that round, and he really wasn’t doing much to try and win the fight.

Afterwards, Bob Arum of Top Rank, had this excuse to make for how dull the fight was, as quoted by ESPN: “Put Ali-Frazier on after Alvarado-Rios, and people would be booing.”

There was indeed a lot of booing and it obviously didn’t help Donaire win new fans because he wasn’t doing much himself to make the fight a more interesting fight to watch. It wasn’t just boring because the fight came after the Brandon Rios vs. Mike Alvarado fight. It was a boring fight, period, and you have to second guess Arum for making the Donaire vs. Nishioka fight the main event instead of the rightful place on the undercard of Rios-Alvarado.

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In the best fight of the card, Brandon Rios (31-0-1, 23 KO’s) defeated Mike Alvarado (33-1, 23 KO’s) by a 7th round TKO in their WBO light welterweight title eliminator bout in what could be the most exciting fight of 2012. Both fighters went toe-to-toe for six rounds, throwing well over 100 punches per round in many cases, and just trading with hard leather nonstop. Alvarado seemed to be in control of the fight after pulling away from Rios in rounds 4 and 5.

However, Rios hurt Alvarado with a big right hand in the last minute of the 6th round. That seemed to change everything. In the 7th, Rios caught Alvarado again with a big right hand that sent him staggering backwards to the ropes. Rios was able to land several hard shots that had Alvarado clearly in distress along the ropes. Referee Pat Russell then did the wise thing and stepped in to halt the fight in order to save Alvarado from taking further punishment.

Rios could end up fighting the winner of the December 8th fight because Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez next. That’s something that Arum has mentioned recently. It’s unclear if Rios will get a shot against Marquez if he loses to Pacquiao.

In other boxing results on the card:

Saul Rodriguez TD 2 Cesar Garcia
Ronald Ellis UD 4 Katrell Straus
Jose Roman TD 3 Javier Garcia
Trevor McCumby TKO 1 Eliseo Durazo
Jose Benavidez UD 8 Pavel Miranda