Arizona Tribune - Aussie Moloney captures WBO world bantamweight crown

NYSE - LSE
CMSC 1.18% 20.4 $
RIO 0.71% 93.53 $
CMSD 1.17% 20.58 $
RBGPF 0% 65 $
BCE 0.57% 20.035 $
BCC 0.64% 75.18 $
GSK -0.4% 46.99 $
RELX -0.33% 33.38 $
BTI 0.09% 52.4 $
NGG 0.79% 75.928 $
AZN -0.57% 156.81 $
RYCEF 1.52% 19.7 $
BP 0.64% 44.785 $
VOD 2.41% 16.785 $
JRI 0.92% 10.87 $
Aussie Moloney captures WBO world bantamweight crown
Aussie Moloney captures WBO world bantamweight crown / Photo: William WEST - AFP/File

Aussie Moloney captures WBO world bantamweight crown

Australia's Jason Moloney won his first world title on Saturday, taking a majority decision over Vincent Astrolabio of the Philippines for the vacant World Boxing Organization bantamweight crown.

Text size:

The 32-year-old from Melbourne won on judges' scores of 115-113 and 116-112 with the third judge scoring a 114-114 draw in the showdown at Stockton, California.

Moloney improved to 26-2, suffering his only losses in his two prior world title bouts, falling to Puerto Rico's Emmanuel Rodriguez in 2018 and Japan's Naoya Inoue in 2020.

Astrolabio, 26, fell to 18-4.

Also on the card later is WBO middleweight champion Janibek Alimkhanuly of Kazakhstan defending his crown for the first time against Canada's Steven Butler.

Unbeaten southpaw Alimkhanuly, 13-0 with eight knockouts, turned 30 last month. He was a 2013 world amateur middleweight champion and 2014 Asian Games middleweight champion.

Butler is 32-3 with one drawn and 26 knockouts.

A.Taylor--AT