By Dan Ambrose: WBC light welterweight champion Erik Morales (52-7, 36 KO’s) is looking for a soft target for his first defense of his title on December 10th in Morales’ home city of Tijuana, Mexico. 2nd tier British lightweight Anthony Crolla (22-2, 9 KO’s) is reportedly being considered by the 35-year-old Morales.

It’s quite common for champions to cherry pick from the divisions below them to select smaller, weaker opposition to fight. However, it’s rare for a champion to pick a 2nd tier fighter from a division below them, which is what Morales would be doing if he were to fight the 24-year-old inexperienced Crolla.

Morales recently captured the WBC vacant light welterweight title in a fight against 21-year-old fringe contender Pablo Cesar Cano on September 17th with a grueling 10th round stoppage win for Morales. This should have been a fairly easy win for Morales, as Cano is little more than a mediocre bottom ranked contender.

However, Morales looked faded and old in struggling through much of the fight to eventually wear Cano down to get the victory. The win pretty much showed that Morales won’t be a champion for long unless he’s matched against weak opposition. That’s where Crolla comes in. He’s not a light welterweight and he looked beyond horrible in barely beating Juan Montiel (5-5-3, 2 KO’s) by an 8 round split decision on the same card as Morales-Cano last September. Crolla isn’t any threat to Morales.

After Morales fights in December, he wants to move down to the lightweight division for one fight to try and take on the winner of the Jorge Linares vs. Antonio DeMarco fight, which takes place on October 15th. Linares and DeMarco are fighting for the vacant World Boxing Council lightweight title.

If Morales can beat the winner of that fight, Morales would pick up a 5th world title the easy way. You can probably predict what would could come next for Morales – a fight for a 6th world title against WBA welterweight champion Vyacheslav Senchenko, a fighter who many boxing fans seen as a paper champion.