By Travis Bell: Former three division world champion Erik Morales (51-6, 35 KO’s) narrowly defeated little known 39-year-old Francisco Lorenzo (35-9, 16 KO’s) by a 12 round unanimous decision on Saturday night at the Caliente Racetrack, in Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico. The final judges’ scores were 116-111, 114-113 and 115-112. The win keeps alive the dream Morales has of fighting Juan Manuel Marquez in what could be a good money fight.

However, Morales has looked anything but good since making a comeback in 2010 after being away from the ring for the past three years after retiring in 2007 following four consecutive losses. Morales has won his last three fights in his comeback but has failed to look good in any of them. Never the less, the World Boxing Council has Morales ranked #2 in the light welterweight division and the WBA has him ranked at #6, ahead of Zab Judah, Victor Cayo and Victor Ortiz.

Lorenzo stalked Morales throughout the fight, forcing him to fight harder than he’s been accustomed to. Lorenzo had no problems finding Morales with his punches, as he was able to land almost at will with head shots. However, Morales fired back and somehow was given the decision despite appearing to have been out-punched by Lorenzo. What’s sad is that this is 2nd tier fighter that Morales was competing against and yet he couldn’t conclusively beat him. This was the same problems Morales recently had with Jose Alfaro in March, a fight that Morales won by a 12 round decision. I saw the fight and scored it 9 rounds to 3 for Alfaro. In Morales last fight against Willie Limond, Morales was getting dominated by Limond until Morales was able to stop him suddenly with a series of body shots in the 6th round.

Morales could face Marquez in early 2011 in what will very likely be a huge mismatch with Marquez easily beating Morales.