Moloney Gets His Hand Raised At Last
Right then — there is no win in boxing quite like the one a good man has been denied too many times. Moloney vs Garcia at the Aichi Sky Expo in Tokoname was rough, exhausting and desperately close, but when the cards were read out, Andrew Moloney was finally, deservedly, a world champion. Majority decision — 115-113 twice, with the third card even — and a roomful of Moloney's old ghosts finally laid to rest.
Make no mistake, Moloney vs Garcia was a proper grind. Willibaldo Garcia is a horrible night's work, all elbows, awkward angles and Mexican grit, and he did not hand over that IBF belt — Moloney had to rip it off him. An accidental head clash opened a cut over the Australian's left eye and turned the back half into a survival test, but the 35-year-old kept his discipline and banked the rounds that mattered.
How Moloney vs Garcia Played Out
The early rounds belonged to Moloney's craft — the jab, the educated feet, the body work that has always been the cornerstone of his game. Garcia, in his first defence of a belt he had held for a year and change, leaned on his physical strength and tried to drag the fight into the trenches. For spells it worked, and the blood over Moloney's eye gave it a real edge of jeopardy.
But this is where experience tells. Moloney has been twelve hard rounds with the very best at the weight, and he did not panic. He nicked the close ones with the cleaner, sharper work, and by the championship rounds Moloney vs Garcia had become a test of who wanted it more. Moloney, 29-4 with 18 knockouts and carrying the scars of every previous disappointment, simply wanted it more.
The Bam Rodriguez Callout
Then came the line that lit the division up. Stood in a Japanese ring with a world title finally around his waist, Moloney called out Jesse 'Bam' Rodriguez and asked for the undisputed fight. Bam is the man at 115lbs, the pound-for-pound darling, and Moloney has unfinished business in that whole conversation. If 'Bam' gets through his bantamweight assignment, an undisputed super flyweight showdown is exactly the kind of fight this sport should be falling over itself to make.
My Verdict
I am not sitting on the fence — this is one of the feel-good wins of the year. Moloney vs Garcia was no masterpiece, but world titles are not won on aesthetics, they are won on heart, smarts and sheer bloody-mindedness, and Moloney had all three. Could Bam beat him? Probably, and comfortably. But Andrew Moloney has earned the right to find out the hard way, and after everything he has been through, I will be cheering him on when he does. Class act, brilliant night.