The Moloney brothers had a tremendous showing in perhaps their last fights in their native Australia for some time.
On a fight card that was streamed on ESPN+ in the United States, Jason and Andrew Moloney picked up quick wins in separate bouts, keeping them both on track to fight for a world title down the line.
Starting off with Jason, he landed a vicious left hook to Goodluck Mrema late in the third round to knock him out for good and retain his WBA Oceania bantamweight title. This was Jason’s second straight win since a narrow split decision loss to Emmanuel Rodriguez in the World Boxing Super Series last year that also had the IBF bantamweight world title on the line.
While both brothers got wins from inside the distance, Andrew’s win was significantly more anticlimactic. Andrew managed to tag Selemani Bangaiza with a few body shots, but nothing that seriously hurt him which made the result even more surprising. Midway through the second round, Bangaiza spat out his mouthpiece, raised his hand up in defeat and quit in the middle of the ring, leaving a stunned and deflated Andrew as the winner by TKO.
Although it wasn’t the manner in which Andrew wanted to win, he still came out as the victor and will now focus on his U.S. debut as a member of Top Rank later this year. Moloney is still the mandatory challenger for the WBA super flyweight title, currently being held by Kal Yafai. Yafai is defending his WBA title against Norbelto Jimenez on June 29 in Providence, Rhode Island.
Below are the full results of the June 15 card from Tweed Heads, New South Wales, Australia:
- Jason Moloney defeated Goodluck Mrema by KO, round 3 to retain the WBA Oceania bantamweight title
- Andrew Moloney defeated Selemani Bangaiza by TKO, round 2
- Reagan Dessaix defeated Mitchell Whitelaw by TKO, round 7 to win the Australian light heavyweight title
- Mose Auimatagi Jr. defeated Kerry Foley by KO, round 6 to win the OPBF Silver super middleweight title
- Adam Stowe and Maks Chylewski fight to a technical draw, Australia - New South Wales State super middleweight title remains vacant
- Rachel Loder defeated Rebekah Radley by TKO, round 2 to win the Australia Female lightweight title
- Joel Trotman defeated Dwayne Boyd by TKO
- Liam Callanan defeated Steven Kennedy by unanimous decision
