Ray Beltran captured the vacant WBO lightweight world championship tonight in a fight that was shown live on ESPN in the US and on BoxNation in the UK.

The ESPN deal that Bob Arum struck up recently for his boxing promotional company Top Rank appears to be off to a good start.

To be fair to him, last night’s card in Reno was excellent.

In what is a big weekend for boxing this weekend, last night’s ESPN show was one hell of a way to kick off the next couple of days.

Topping the bill was Ray Beltran’s big win for the WBO lightweight title. Following the fight Beltran said:

“I’m very happy. Thank God for this and thank Bob Arum for giving me the opportunity.”

His promoter Bob Arum said:

“This is a lesson to everyone. He went over to England to fight for the world title and they cheated him. He won the fight easy and they called it a draw. He should have won the title then. But instead of getting discouraged he persisted, he worked hard and today he finally accomplished his goal of winning the title – and I’ very proud of him.”

The fight he was referring to above was the draw between Beltran and Ricky Burns a few years back that took place in 2013 in Glasgow, Scotland – not England Bob.

Arum concluded:

“After these years, winning the world title – it’s time to celebrate. We’ll talk about who he’s next going to fight next week.”