By Dan Ambrose: Photo credit: Sumio Yamada – WBO light welterweight champion Timothy Bradley (27-0, 11 KO’s) wants to go after Erik Morales (51-7, 35 KO’s) after he beats the WBC picked out fringe contender Pablo Cesar Cano (22-0-1, 17 KO’s) for the vacant World Boxing Council light welterweight title at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Morales, 35, will almost surely beat Cano, as the young 21-year-old has never even fought a 1st tier fighter in his life and has been given a shot at the title basically because all of the other top contenders were busy and unavailable to fight.

Bradley sees the Cano-Morales fight as a joke, saying to mydesert.com “Erik Morales can be handed the title, but that’s a paper champion if you don’t fight the man. I fight real opponents and they’re fighting hand picked fighters. When I come back, Morales better be ready.”

While I really like what Morales has accomplished during the prime of his career, I think he’s over-the-hill and would lose badly to a fighter like Bradley. There’s no way Morales would even win a round unless he’s getting the nod from the judges based on popularity and past accomplishments rather than what he would actually be doing against Bradley.

I don’t know that the fight is doable actually, because Bradley is mired in legal problems right now with his promoters Gary Shaw and Ken Thompson. Bradley may sign with Top Rank Promotions, however, and there’s talk of him fighting on the November 12th Manny Pacquiao vs. Juan Manuel Marquez undercard. I’ll believe that when I see it. It may happen but there would still be the problem of putting together a fight between Morales, who is promoted by Golden Boy Promotions, and the Top Rank promoted Bradley, if he does sign with them.

That would make it difficult, because Golden Boy will likely want to match Morales against an in house fighter rather than putting him in with someone that will beat him in his first title defense like Bradley. Morales is a decent light welterweight, but he’s not in the league of a fighter like Bradley. More than likely, Golden Boy will ignore Bradley and instead match Morales against Golden Boy promoted IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan for a unification bout. It’s a safe fight for Khan, who they want to make a star out in the class of Floyd Mayweather Jr., and it’s a bout that would likely make more money than a Bradley-Morales fight. Khan needs fights like this because they make him a more popular fighter but without the risk that he’ll get knocked out again before he becomes a PPV star.