By Chris Williams: First it was Manny Pacquiao wanting to turn back the clock and now it’s IBF/WBO super bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire (29-1, 18 KO’s) in wanting to back to the early stages of his boxing form for his fight this Saturday night against former WBC super bantamweight champion Toshiaki Nishioka (39-4-3, 24 KO’s) at the Home Depot Center, in Carson, California, USA.

Donaire said to Yahoo Sports News “Watching Andre [Ward], that made me realize that’s how I fight and that I needed to go back to the roots of who I am and how I fight.”

I can’t remember a fight where Donaire fought anything remotely similar to Ward. They’re both different fighters, and always has been from what I can see of them. Donaire’s situation is completely different from Ward in that Donaire had a huge size advantage over his opponents when he was fighting at flyweight, super flyweight and bantamweight. Even now, Donaire is still bigger than a lot of the super bantamweights in the division. However, he hasn’t been bigger than the guys he’s faced thus far at this weight and this is perhaps the main reason that Donaire isn’t knocking guys out anymore like he once did at flyweight and super flyweight. He’s facing guys his own size now and he can’t knock these guys out.

Donaire might as well start trying to box his opponents instead of looking to load up on big shots because you could see that really hurt him in his last few fights, especially his bout against Mathebula. Donaire was too busy trying to score a spectacular one punch knockout like he did against the tiny Fernando Montiel, and he didn’t make adjustments when it become clear that his power wasn’t overwhelming enough for him to knock these guys out. Donaire is going to have to go back to boxing sooner or later, because if he tries to slug with Abner Mares or Guillermo Rigondeaux, he’s going to take a beating possibly get knocked out.

It should be interesting to see how Donaire does against Nishioka if he’s committed to really trying to box this guy instead of slugging it out with him. I can see Donaire having problems either way. Nishioka is good at boxing his opponents and hell make up Donaire’s face with his jab if he tries to fight like that against him. I hope Donaire has thick skin because he’s going to be taking a lot of jabs to the face in this fight.