By Dan Ambrose: Now that the smoke has cleared in the fight between Antonio DeMarco (26-2-1, 19 KO’s) and Jorge Linares after DeMarco came from behind to stop Linares in the 11th round, Erik Morales (52-7, 36 KO’s) now knows who his target will be for 2012.

Morales, 35, wants to fight for a 5th world title and will be moving down from the light welterweight division where he currently holds the WBC light welterweight paper title and will be looking to add a 5th world title against the 25-year-old DeMarco.

You’d have to favor Morales over DeMarco even though Morales looked horrible in beating fringe contender Pablo Cesar Cano by a 10th round stoppage last September to claim the vacant WBC light welterweight title. That Morales was even able to win the fight is really just dumb luck because the guy that Morales was set to fight, Lucas Matthysse, would have beaten Morales up without any problems had he not taken ill in the week before the fight.

That was incredible luck for Morales because it allowed his promoters from Golden Boy to look for a last minute substitute and they conviently found a guy ranked near the bottom of the top 15 in the 21-year-old Cano. This was someone that Morales could beat and he did, but Morales really struggled something fierce to get the win.

Before Morales faces DeMarco next year, Morales has a scheduled title defense on December 10th in Tijuana, Mexico. No worries, though. Morales’ promoters are looking to match him against a young lightweight in Anthony Crolla instead of a fighter ranked in the top 15 in the light welterweight division. It gets even better. Crolla isn’t even ranked in the top 15 in the lightweight division. In other words, Morales will likely be defending his title against a young 2nd tier lightweight. This is what you call matchmaking.

DeMarco looked bad against Linares until the 11th round when he hurt Linares with a series of shots and continued to blast away at the bleeding Linares until the referee halted the fight.

I don’t think DeMarco can beat Morales but he’ll likely beat Morale up badly if Morales can’t get a stoppage win. I still think Morales will win a decision but he’ll take a lot of punishment if he doesn’t stop the tall, slender southpaw DeMarco.