Previewing Donaire-Nishioka and Rios-Alvarado: Spectacular Night Of Boxing

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This weekend boxing fans are in for a treat as HBO Boxing presents 2 fights that should be extremely entertaining as WBO and IBF Super Bantamweight title holder “The Filipino Flash”, Nonito Donaire will face Toshiaki Nishioka. However, that’s not it. We have a battle of 2 undefeated power punchers in the light welterweight division as “Mile High” Mike Alvarado will square off against Brandon “Bam Bam” Rios. Trust me folks, you won’t want to blink in that Rios-Alvarado fight. It will be filled with fireworks.

Nonito Donaire (29-1 with 18 KOs) comes into this fight having won 28 fights in a row. His last lost was his 2nd career fight over 11 years ago in 2001. He is the #1 ranked Super Bantamweight and a top 5 P4P fighter in the world. Even though Donaire has been extremely impressive in almost all of his bouts, he is yet to have that 1 memorable win. Until he fights someone like Guillermo Rigondeaux, Abner Mares, or Anselmo Moreno, he may continue to search for that signature win.

Toshiaki Nishioka (39-4-3 with 24 KOs) comes into this fight on a 16 fight win streak. He has some power, but he has never faced anyone near the level of Donaire. He does have a huge experience advantage over Donaire as he is 36 years old, has been fighting for 18 years, and has 46 career fights. For him to have a chance in this fight he must find a way to keep Donaire away with the jab and when Donaire gets inside, he must because to pound the body and do some dirty boxing.

This will be only Nishioka’s 5th fight outside of Japan, so combine that with the skill, youth, and speed advantage that Donaire has and this will be a very tough fight for Nishioka to win. Since I don’t see him winning on the cards, Nishioka will probably have to catch a “lucky” punch to stun Donaire and win by stoppage. However, I expect Donaire to control this fight and he may earn a stoppage late, but most likely he wins on the cards. Nonito Donaire by unanimous decision.

As I said, that is not the only fight on the card that will be an attention getter as Alvarado vs. Rios will be something to watch. Mike Alvarado (33-0 with 23 KOs) comes into this fight off probably his best 2 fights against Bredis Prescott and Mauricio Herrera. Against Herrera he took more shots than most expected him to, but Herrera’s lack of power saved him. He said on ThaBoxingVoice Show that he will fight different against Rios and he will have better defense than he did against Herrera because he realizes the power that Rios does have.

Brandon Rios (30-0-1 with 22 KOs) comes into this fight off 2 lackluster fights in my opinion. Some say it’s because he didn’t care, as he came into both fight over the weight limits. Also anyone who saw the fight against Richard Abril saw that the judges gave Rios a fight that he clearly did not win. However, 1 thing you cannot deny is Rios is a power puncher who wants to let his hand go and this fight should allow him to fight his knockout or be knocked out style.

This fight is not going to go the distance. Heck, they could probably make it a 6 round fight and it shouldn’t go the distance. Both guys have power and both are not great at defense, or at least haven’t shown it in the past. If you’ve seen me write on Rios in the past, you can tell I have definitely not been impressed. He was sluggish vs. John Murray in MSG and he clearly lost his last fight to Richard Abril. However, I’m also very wary of Alvarado because he was not able to stop Herrera, now maybe because Herrera is just that tough. I’m going to guess who gets KO’d 1st and go with Rios by TKO in round 4.

These 2 fights should get fight fans in the right frame of mind for the great set of fights taking place in the Barclay’s Center in Brooklyn on October 20th, but until then, these fights are definitely something you don’t want to miss. Hopefully Nonito Donaire will win and move on to fight 1 of the previously mentioned opponents and whoever wins the Alvarado-Rios fight, should jump right to the top of the division to join the Marquez’s, the Matthysse’s, and the Garcia’s of the 140 lb division, but for now, it’s just time to enjoy the fights.