Andres Cortes stayed undefeated Saturday night to remain in position to land a junior lightweight title shot.

His 10-round, unanimous-decision defeat of Spain’s Salvador Jimenez wasn’t the least bit entertaining and caused the restless crowd at Pechanga Arena in San Diego to boo at times. Judges Carla Caiz (99-91), Jack Reiss (100-90) and Zachary Young (100-90) nonetheless scored Cortes a wide winner over Jimenez, who fought entirely too defensively to win and didn’t throw many punches.

Jimenez oddly raised his arms after the final bell sounded as if he thought he won their unremarkable bout. Cortes (23-0, 12 KOs) threw and landed just about twice as many punches as Jimenez (14-2-1, 6 KOs), according to CompuBox’s unofficial count.

Las Vegas’ Cortes competed for the first time since another 10-round unanimous points victory over Abraham Nova on June 21 at Fontainebleau Las Vegas. Cortes, 27, is the WBO’s fifth-ranked contender for its 130-pound champ, Emanuel Navarrete (39-2-1, 32 KOs), who will make a mandated defense of his WBO belt against undefeated Filipino contender Charly Suarez (18-0, 10 KOs) in the 12-round main event later Saturday night.

In the bout before Cortes’ victory, San Diego native Giovani Santillan beat Angel Beltran unanimously on points in a competitive 10-rounder that took place almost a year after he'd lost a welterweight title fight at the same venue in his hometown.

Santillan (34-1, 18 KOs) won by the same score, 97-93, on the cards of judges Rudy Barragan, David Sutherland and Steve Weisfeld. Beltran (18-3, 11 KOs), a southpaw from Mexico, has lost two of his past three fights, both by unanimous decision.

Santillan’s strong sixth round, during which he landed several hard lefts, set the tone for the second half of their welterweight bout.

Santillan, 33, fought for the first time since Brian Norman Jr. knocked him out in the 10th round of an action-packed fight for the then-vacant WBO welterweight title. Norman (27-0, 21 KOs, 1 NC), of Conyers, Georgia, led on all three scorecards before he sent Santillan to the canvas twice in the 10th.