TOSHIAKI NISHIOKA vs IVAN HERNANDEZ

After pulling off an upset by knocking out Jhonny Gonzalez in Mexico, Toshiaki Nishioka gets what looks like a fairly easy defence of his WBC super bantam title when he meets Mexico’s Ivan Hernandez in Tokyo on Saturday.

Hernandez, 26, is a former WBO champion three weight divisions south at 115 pounds. He sprang a big surprise when he knocked out Mark “Too Sharp” Johnson to win the title, but that was five years ago. He lost the title in his first defence when Fernando Montiel stopped him in seven one-sided rounds and Hernandez hasn’t been very active since. Hernandez did get a chance at the WBC super bantam championship three years ago but he suffered a cut across the bridge of the nose and was stopped in four rounds by Israel Vazquez, who was already beginning to wear him down.

Nishioka, 33, hasn’t lost since 2004. He is a good technician who hits very hard with the left hand from his southpaw stance. As Hernandez isn’t particularly durable this fight has a matter-of-time look about it. Hernandez has decent boxing skills but he looks overmatched. If he boxes a careful type of fight, using the ring and trying to keep away from Nishioka’s left hand, he might be able to take the fight into the later rounds but it seems inevitable that he will get caught at some stage. I’m expecting a Nishioka KO win in seven to 10 rounds.