By Dan Ambrose: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum has set 36-year-old Marco Antonio Barrera (66-7, 43 KO’s) with a title shot against World Boxing Council lightweight champion Humberto Soto (52-7-2, 32 KO’s) on September 11th in Mexico City. Despite Barrera having lost three out of his last six fights with his only wins coming against 2nd tier opposition, Arum thinks that Barrera can win a 4th world title.

In an article by Dan Rafael of ESPN, Arum said this about the Barrera-Soto fight: “I don’t know who wins that fight. Sometime I think Barrera, sometimes I think Soto. I don’t know.” Let me tell you who’s going to win this fight. It’s not going to be Barrera, that’s for sure.

I hope Arum was just joshing around by saying he’s not sure who will win because this seems like such an obvious choice it’s not even funny. On the one hand you have a younger, still in his prime fighter like Soto, who hasn’t lost since losing a controversial 4 round disqualification to Francisco Lorenzo in June 2008.

The last real loss that Soto has suffered was a 12 round decision to Joan Guzman. Soto has looked almost unbeatable since then and appears to be at the minimum the second best fighter in the lightweight division behind Juan Manuel Marquez. Barrera, 36, was one of the best fighters in boxing for a 10 year period from the mid 1990s until 2006.

However, Barrera has been on a downward slide since 2007, losing to Marquez, Manny Pacquiao and Amir Khan over that time. And there’s an argument that can be made that Barrera deserved to lose the first fight with Rocky Juarez back in 2006.

Many people felt that Juarez did enough to get the win in that fight. Barrera looked listless in that bout, and was beaten to the punch and pretty much out-worked the entire fight by Juarez.

The odd part about Barrera being able to fight for the WBC lightweight title against a talented fighter like Soto is that Barrera isn’t ranked at all by the WBC. His name is not there among the top 15 fighters ranked.

Barrera actually isn’t ranked in the top 15 at all in the lightweight division right now, which makes it seem all the more absurd that a fighter with a 3-3 record in his last six fights, with his only wins coming against 2nd tier fighters over this time period, is being given a shot at a title. It just seems wrong.

What about the contenders that are waiting patiently in line looking for a title shot like Anthony Peterson, Brandon Rios, Miguel Vazquez, John Murray and Ji-Hoon Kim? These guys, you would think, should deserve a title shot right now more than Barrera since they are winning most of their recent fights, unlike Barrera.