Last Saturday, Andrew Moloney defeated Willibaldo Garcia to win the IBF Super Flyweight Championship by majority decision.
The title for Moloney marks the second in his boxing career, while also serving as a fitting reward for the resilience he has shown throughout his long journey in the sport.
Back in May 2024, Moloney was defeated by Pedro Guevara by a split decision for the WBC interim Super Flyweight Title.
Furious with the result, Moloney announced his retirement during an in-ring interview, stating that he was “done with the sport.”
The decision was not the first time Moloney had received the short end of the stick, as a highly controversial no-contest prevented him from reclaiming his WBA title against Joshua Franco in 2020.
Despite these decisions, the Aussie decided to come back to boxing due to not having fulfilled a lifelong goal.
“It took a while [to get over the loss to Guevara] and I knew that I still had so much left.” Moloney said.
“Even though at that point I had won the WBA Regular World Title, there’s some people who don’t count that as a world championship.
“My whole life’s mission has been to become world champion. I’ve had so many people help me over the years, but I felt like I hadn’t achieved the goal that I’d set out to accomplish.
“By winning this world title on the weekend, no one can say I wasn’t a world champion. No one can take this away from me, it is mission accomplished.”
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Moloney kick-started his return with two stoppage victories against Jakrawut Majungoen and Pawan Kumar Arya. These wins placed Moloney back into the title picture and secured his position as a mandatory challenger for IBF Super Flyweight Champion Willibaldo Garcia.
Garcia’s team, along with Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Boxing, attempted to lure the Aussie into temporarily relinquishing his mandatory status by offering a substantial financial payout, so an undisputed unification fight could be made between Jesse Rodriguez and the IBF title holder.
However, Moloney realised that it was now or never, and the proposal was ultimately rejected as his world title dream was “not for sale.”
“[The IBF] gave us 30 days to negotiate the [Garcia] fight, but there was basically no talk at all about the fight being made,” Moloney revealed.
“All the talk that was coming from Garcia’s team and Eddie Hearn, they tried their best to persuade me to not fight and let Garcia, fight [Jesse] Rodriguez.
“They threw a lot of money at me to try and get me to step aside, but I’d been waiting over a year for this fight and I was quite inactive at the time.
“I’m 35 years old, it felt like I was selling my dream, so I told Tony [Tolj] that I didn’t even want to know the numbers and to tell them my dream was not for sale.
“We’re going to beat this guy, become world champion and then we’re going to worry about the money later.”
The fight itself was a very competitive encounter. Moloney built up a strong early lead, but Garcia rallied back to win most of the latter rounds.
Before the final round, all three of the judges’ scorecards had the two men separated by one point with the fight on the line. Moloney needed to dig deep if he wanted to finally realise his dream.
Through being the more accurate puncher of the two, the Aussie won the twelfth round on all three judges’ scorecards as he edged a razor-close majority decision win (115-113 x2, 114-114).
“I’ve got a great team with me in the corner and they read the fight perfectly,” Moloney said. “Obviously, they didn’t know the scorecards, but were able to read how the fight was going.
“Before the last round they said ‘we think you’re winning, but it might be down to this last round. You need to win this round to make sure that you win the fight.’
“Things were getting pretty tough in there and I had to really dig deep, it’s crazy to think that decades of hard work and sacrifices came down to that last three minutes.”
When Moloney was announced as the new champion, he dropped to his knees in tears as his corner crowded him.
The IBF championship belt was wrapped around his left shoulder, signifying that the lifelong dream had finally come true.
“That 30 seconds waiting for the announcement. I’ve never been so nervous in my life,” Moloney laughed. “I’ve been on the end of some bad decisions over the years, I didn’t want to be known as ‘the unlucky bloke.’
“When they raised my arm, so much emotion came out. I’ve seen that video of me getting my arm raised about 200 times now, I can still hardly watch it without getting tears in my eyes.
“Everything I’ve had to go through over this journey, I think most people would have thrown in the towel and given up.
“I’ve had to really push on, there’s no doubt that those tough moments have made this victory so much sweeter.”
Now owning one of the four titles in the Super Flyweight division, the win would have perfectly set Moloney up to fight Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez for a chance to become the first Australian-born Undisputed Champion in the four-belt era.
However, it was announced earlier this week that Rodriguez was confirmed to have vacated his WBO and WBC titles so he could permanently move up to the Bantamweight division.
Although he thought Rodriguez vacating was “a shame,” the Aussie expressed a massive interest in re-unifying the 115lbs division.
“I would have loved to have gone on to fight Bam Rodriguez for the undisputed title, but he’s obviously chasing that [Naoya] Inoue fight.
“The mission now is to collect those belts one by one, being a unified champion is the next goal on the list.
“My team has already started conversations about what’s next, I’m sure there’s going to be plenty of options now that I’m world champion, it’s extremely exciting.”
Although the state of the 115lbs division looks uncertain, Andrew Moloney has once again established himself as a force at the world level and looks determined to make the most of his second reign as champion.
