The Moloney family is halfway home towards their longtime goal.
Jason Moloney claimed a bantamweight title on his third try, spending more than nine rounds fighting through what believed was a broken right hand to outpoint the Philippines’ Vincent Astrolabio (18-4, 13KOs). A twelve-round, majority decision win saw the 32-year-old Australian win the vacant WBO bantamweight title in their ESPN-televised bout Saturday evening from Stockton Arena in Stockton, California.
The fight was strategically scheduled by Top Rank, slotted one week ahead of this Saturday’s ESPN Pay-Per-View event from MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. Andrew Moloney—Jason’s twin brother—meets Japan’s Junto Nakatani for the vacant WBO junior bantamweight title atop an ESPN telecast preceding the PPV portion of the show.
“This is the dream. If you can write a script for a movie on your career, this is the perfect story,” Jason Moloney told BoxingScene.com. “You couldn’t have the stars align any better. Andrew and I are so stoked of achieving our dream of becoming world champions and now we have the chance to do it one week apart.
“It’s something we’ve always dreamed about, being able to hold championship belts at the same time.”
Jason Moloney (26-2, 19KOs) was a slight favorite to prevail over the streaking Astrolabio. Andrew (25-2, 16KOs) has a steeper hill to climb, as bet365 has him as a +250 underdog heading into Saturday’s title fight. Nakatani (24-0, 18KOs) is a -350 favorite by the same sportsbook to become a two-division titlist this weekend.
Andrew Moloney has won his last four starts since a three-fight series with Joshua Franco which left him winless (0-2 and 1 No-Contest) and ended his secondary WBA junior bantamweight title reign.
Jason was victorious two days after Andrew’s first defeat to Franco in June 2020 and also won on the undercard of his brother’s repeat loss to the San Antonio native in their August 2021 trilogy clash. Wedged in between, Jason suffered a seventh-round knockout defeat to Naoya Inoue in their October 2020 WBA/IBF bantamweight title fight two weeks prior to Andrew having to settle for a No-Contest with Franco in their November 2020 rematch.
Separate four fight win streaks by the Aussie twins included three in a row on the same show—all in 2022 as both positioned themselves to mandatory positions in their respective weight divisions.
Now that Jason has brought home a major title, the belief within their circle is that it’s Andrew’s destiny to follow suit.
“This is it, the perfect moment,” suggested Jason Moloney. “It’s the perfect opportunity for both of us to get the job done. It will be an incredible moment. We’ve both worked hard to get into these positions to challenge for world titles.”
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox