Usually, a second or two after clicking on the message you know whether a mortgage has been approved or whether a job application has been successful. The worst ones generally have the word “tax” in the subject line.

Denzel Bentley opened his inbox Monday and found out that he was the WBO middleweight champion.

“They cc’d me in the email, but I hadn’t seen it because I was driving,” Bentley told The Ring after finding out that the suspended Janibek Alimkhanuly had vacated his full title and that his own interim belt had been instantly upgraded. “Martin [Bowers, Bentley’s manager] was like, ‘Have you looked at your phone?’ He explained to me what it was and I was like, ‘Oh snap.’ When I got in and looked at my email and I was like, ‘OK, that’s it. I’m a world champion.’ ”

Bentley (22-3-1, 18 KOs) has felt like a world champion since he beat Endry Saavedra (17-2-1, 14 KOs) by seventh-round technical knockout to become the interim champion April 4 at O2 Arena in London.

The belt he received after stopping the Venezuelan doesn’t have the word “interim” engraved on it. But with Alimkhanuly still several months away from completing the 12-month suspension issued to him by the WBO after he returned adverse findings for a banned substance before a December unification fight with WBA champion Erislandy Lara, and no prospect of the Kazakh being stripped of his full title, Bentley just got on with life.

Still, the 31-year-old Londoner had grown tired of waiting to see what would happen with Alimkhanuly (17-0, 12 KOs) until that email dropped into his inbox.

Did life feel any different when he woke up on Tuesday morning?

“It’s a good question, man,” Bentley said. “You know what? Before this happened, I was kind of over it. Everyone that knows me and knows the situation understood the situation and what it should be, so whatever happens, happens. I couldn’t really care less.

“Then when the email came through, I was actually buzzing, I was happy, so I was like, ‘Yeah, maybe I do care.’ It’s official now. It’s in the history books. There’s no question. There’s no there’s no asterisk on it. I mean, it feels good.”

Boxing politics is so convoluted these days that more and more fighters are having their crowning moment delivered by email rather than an in-ring MC.

Regardless of the situation, those fighters generally receive a fraction of the adulation or recognition as those who get their arms raised after a fight. Bentley deserves no such treatment.

Rather than sitting on his No. 1 spot with the WBO and waiting for Alimkhanuly to return from his suspension, the former British and European champion decided to stay active and fight. When the WBO ordered him to take on the hard-punching but relatively known Saavedra, he fought and finished the man ranked at No. 2 in the governing body’s rankings.

Had Alimkhanuly been stripped of his title or decided to give it up six months earlier, Bentley and Saavedra would have been ordered to box for the vacant title anyway.

“Exactly, yeah. You got number one and number two,” said Bentley, who lost a unanimous decision to Alimkhanuly in November 2022. “My whole career has been done the hard way, if I’m being honest. You can kind of see that, but that’s not something I like to ramble on about and be like, ‘Oh look I’ve done this, I’ve been through that.’ Whatever, innit.

“It’s interesting. Just like that, an email and you’re up there. Obviously, they should have just done what they needed to do and I could have won it in the ring and it would have been a better feeling, but either way, the situation is the situation. It should have been number one versus number two [for the vacant belt]. It should have been all of that, but it wasn’t so I just have to accept it this way.”

Bentley doesn’t yet have a date for his first title defense penciled in his diary, but he has always wanted to be a busy fighter. He is aiming to get back in the ring as quickly and as regularly as possible.

Having achieved a long-held dream by winning a world title, he can now set his sights on becoming undisputed champion in the 160-pound division.

“Yeah, most definitely,” Bentley said. “That’s the aim, man. I hope we can do that. I mean, we can do that. I’m the champion. I just want to be active. It’s right there. It’s literally right there. I’m ready for it.”