By Allan Fox: Despite losing his last fight to unbeaten Danny Garcia and having lost two out of his last three fights, the 35-year-old former four division world champion Erik Morales (52-8, 36 KO’s) has been given a very generous ranking by the World Boxing Council who have Morales ranked #5 in the welterweight division.

The WBC couldn’t set Morales up any better than that for him to be in the running for a title shot against WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2012 if Mayweather is interested in the idea of fighting Morales. It couldn’t have come at a better time for Morales, because he lost his WBC light welterweight title on the scales before his last fight against Danny Garcia last month on March 24th.

Morales was beaten by a 12 round unanimous decision in that fight. The defeat knocked Morales out of the top 15 at 140lbs. However, the WBC has come along just in time to give Morales a high ranking at 147, which is a lot better for Morales because he now has a chance, such as it is, to possibly get a fight against Mayweather or one of the welterweight champions.

There’s only two of them that would really matter that much to Morales – Manny Pacquiao and Mayweather – because WBA champ Vyacheslav Senchnko is basically an unknown in the United States, and a fight between him and Morales wouldn’t draw flies. The IBF title is vacant right now, but it’s being fought over by Randall Bailey and Mike Jones. Neither of those guys are worth fighting because they don’t have a big enough name for Morales to waste time on.

It’s kind of unsettling how the WBC has chosen to give Morales such a high ranking in the welterweight division after his defeats against Maidana and Garcia. They’ve placed Morales above Andre Berto and Kell Brook, two fighters that I think would handle Morales without too many problems. When you get a fighter like Morales ranked high without having really beaten anyone to deserve that ranking, it makes it seem like the World Boxing Council has given him a high ranking based on things that he did in the distant past rather than what he’s doing now. Morales in now deserves to be ranked that high, especially with the way he fought against the 24-year-old Garcia in his last fight.

I doubt that Morales will be able to take advantage of his #5 ranking by getting a fight against Mayweather or Pacquiao. Those guys will likely avoid Morales like the plague because they realize that it’s not a fight that boxing fans would be interested in seeing. Even Juan Manuel Marquez has been cool to the idea of facing Morales. He knows it won’t be a competitive fight and boxing fans won’t be happy after he easily beats Morales.