By Dan Ambrose: In something of a cruel joke fight, 35-year-old Erik Morales (51-7. 35 KO’s) will be facing the inexperienced 21-year-old number #12 ranked WBC light welterweight contender for the vacant World Boxing Council light welterweight title on the undercard of the September 17th fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Victor Ortiz at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Cano was found as a replacement for Lucas Matthysse, who pulled out of the fight on Friday due to a viral infection. Morales’ promoters from Golden Boy Promotions searched and found one of their younger fighters from their stable, the little known Cano, to put in with Morales for the paper title fight. It’s essentially an in house fight with two Golden Boy fighters battling for a paper title.

Neither will hold the strap down for any length of time unless they’re carefully matched and kept away from the top guys. Cano may be ranked #12 by the WBC, but he’s not ranked in the top 15 by the other sanctioning bodies and I’m in agreement with that. He’s very raw, and flawed.

Personally, I see Cano as a fighter that should be ranked in the mid 20s, if that. He’s not a huge puncher, isn’t very fast and is there to be hit. But he may have enough youth to make Morales struggle to win. And who knows? If Cano can throw enough punches to outwork Morales, he may be able to get a close decision win. I have no problems with Golden Boy putting this fight together, because it’s a decent non-title type fight. But I do have a problem with a title being on the line for a fight like.

Cano isn’t a top 10 fighter, and it’s just wrong to have him fighting for a title against an aging guy like Morales, who I don’t think should be fighting for a title either. But it does give Morales a very good chance of picking up his 4th world title. It couldn’t get any easier than this.

With Cano’s inflated ranking given to him by the WBC, Morales is facing a guy that should be weak enough for him to win this fight. That’s the important part because if they matched Morales tough with someone like Timothy Bradley, Humberto Soto, Danny Garcia, Ajose Olusegun, Devon Alexander or Lamont Peterson, I think Morales would lose the fight. But Cano is young, slow, hittable and inexperienced enough for Morales to win the paper title.

It’s great matchmaking by Golden Boy, but it’s not good for boxing fans because this fight shouldn’t be for a title. All it does is weaken the division by creating a weak champion that will have to be carefully matched for him to be able to hold down the title for any length of time, which is what I expect to happen.

Don’t count on Morales being matched against anyone good for a long time after he picks up this paper strap. It’s probably going to be title milking time. Morales can sell tickets no matter who he’s facing, and with the WBC paper title in his possession, his promoters can have him help sell pay per view fights advertizing him as a champion of the WBC light welterweight division.