Terence Crawford retained his WBO lightweight title on Saturday night with a nearly flawless performance over 12 rounds to easily outpoint Ray Beltran. Crawford (25-0, 17 KO’s) controlled the fight, mostly from a southpaw stance, and gave his hometown Omaha, NE fans a virtuoso performance.
Official scores were 120-108, 119-109 and 119-109. InTheCorner.net scored the fight 119-109.
Beltran (29-6-1, 17 KO’s) challenged Crawford as the WBO’s #1 contender and most observers expected a close fight. But Crawford got out fast and proved to have an answer for Beltran’s attack, which mostly consisted of stalking and throwing isolated power punches.
Beltran did connect with single power shots from time to time, but the champion was able to finish exchanges throughout the fight by putting the challenger on the defensive.
Ultimately, Beltran was never able to figure out a way to sustain an attack on the extremely focused Crawford and, while the one-sided fight may not have been what the HBO audience wanted, the packed house of Nebraska fans were overjoyed.
Coming off of a thrilling TKO9 victory over Yuriorkis Gamboa in June, Crawford has established himself as the top fighter in the world at 135 pounds.
