Paul Kent: Boxer Andrew Moloney fights back from terrible injustice against Joshua Franco
Boxer Andrew Moloney went from gritty failure to folk hero last year but there was one small problem: Australia failed to notice, writes PAUL KENT.
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Australia once preferred its heroes to be, as Les Carlyon wrote, “gritty failures and folk heroes”.
In more recent years, Australia’s sporting heroes seem to come mostly in the Olympic variety, as if the rest have already had their chance and, in some sense, squandered it.
It would be a wonderful world if we all treated each other the way the country, as a collective, treated the Olympians.
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Everyone was brave. They did the country proud. There was no failure, just bold effort.
They all were inspiring. And now they have returned and everybody still acknowledges their sacrifice, praising their efforts to endure quarantine.
And as this goes on and everybody acknowledges the effort and sacrifice, a little Australian fighter steps into the ring in Las Vegas having given more, and got less back, than just about anyone.
Andrew Moloney went to Las Vegas in June last year as WBA junior bantamweight champion, hardly known in his own homeland, and fought American Joshua Franco in a close fight that he ultimately lost.
It was a fair result, Moloney outworked over the 12 rounds by his rival.
Instead of flying home to the Gold Coast and risk being isolated by the worldwide Covid restrictions, Moloney stayed in his hotel room in Las Vegas for five months with his twin brother, Jason, training and quarantining so he could be right for the rematch.
And then somewhere in what happened next, Moloney went from gritty failure to folk hero with one small problem: Australia failed to notice.
Moloney stepped into the ring for the rematch and, with 40 seconds left in the first round, and both fighters standing back in their stance, referee Russell Mora said to the judges: “Accidental headbutt, on the eye.”
And this is where it begins. A poor decision that took not just a young man’s immediate dream, but quite possibly the moment that could change his life forever.
Our sporting heroes who endure all need a little adversity on their way to permanency.
Jeff Fenech returned from the Los Angeles Olympics filled with suffering. His rightful victory overturned on appeal, the injustice sprinkled a little magic dust over Fenech and launched his professional career, a three-time world champion.
On the other side, Grahame ‘Spike’ Cheney went on to become Australia’s only Olympic silver medallist, four years after Fenech, failed to endure and, despite now being one of Australia’s most tragic sporting stories, is largely forgotten.
Before Fenech, Australia’s most famous fighter was another with a strong streak of tragedy.
Les Darcy was the young world middleweight champion when he died from a tooth infection in 1917, at just 21, yet he remains in the Australian conscience.
By the time Moloney got off his stool for the second round, the swelling around the American Franco’s eye was already significant.
Mora again told the judges it was caused by a head clash.
The difference is significant. Damage from a punch is part of their trade and, if the damage is too severe, a fight can be stopped and the other fighter is declared the winner.
A fight stopped from an accidental head clash immediately goes to the judges’ scorecards or, if the fight was less than four rounds, it is declared a “no decision”.
Moloney outlanded Franco 25 punches to 11 in that first round.
A minute and 15 seconds into the second round, referee Mora stopped the fight to have the ring doctor look at the eye.
“Let’s see if we can find the moment where this happens here,” ESPN commentator Joe Tessitore said.
“Remember,” he said, “it was ruled a clash of heads. Now, there was a solid jab from Moloney … And you can see the swelling developing already from there.”
As the fighters resumed, former world champion Tim Bradley, the expert commentator, said: “Tess, there wasn’t a clash of heads. The guys in the truck, listen, the guys in the truck, they’ve got the best eyes on this event. There’s no head clash at all. I don’t understand how the ref was able to see that right away. I don’t get it.”
As the second round progressed, Tessitore asked whether Mora would use the replay rule, which much like the NRL bunker allowed Mora to replay the vision to determine whether it was actually a head clash or punch that caused the swelling.
This was the first world title fight where the technology was being used.
By the end of the second round, Franco’s eye was swollen shut and the referee stopped it. Moloney celebrated briefly, before realising they had ruled the dwelling to be from a head clash.
So, ringside, Tessitore explained the decision: “I will tell you right now, that our veteran crew in the production truck has scoured the vision of round one. They saw a shoulder, they did not see a clash of heads, they saw two punches that landed on the right eye. According to the video that we have in our production truck, this should be a TKO victory and a reclaiming of the title for Andrew Moloney.”
Andre Ward, another former world champion now working as an expert commentator, said: “If ever there was a time to use that rule and get it right, it’s right now.”
When the judges finally went to the replay, it looked as if justice would be delivered.
“Look at the right eye of Franco, it is not swollen shut there,” Tessitore said in commentary. “Now watch the jab here of Andrew Moloney. Watch the Australian challenger, the jab comes in, flush on that right eye. That’s what caused the swelling.”
Ward said: “Immediately swelling, right there.”
Tessitore said, “it was absolutely not a clash of heads.”
And Bradley said, “and, if you can’t clearly see that, something is wrong with you.”
The judges saw nothing and called the fight a no decision, as strong an injustice that was ever carried out.
The review officials pointed to a moment in the first round when their heads were together in a clinch to justify their decision that it was a head clash.
Except Moloney had his head placed on the opposite side of Franco’s head, near the left eye and not his right.
If Ariarne Titmus suffered a similar injustice at the Olympics this country would be in uproar, and justifiably so.
Andrew Moloney is a boyish looking young man making his trade in the most savage of sports but, because he plies his trade in a sport fighting for legitimacy, he goes largely unheralded in this country.
It is a tremendous injustice.
On Sunday, he steps into the ring one more time.
Boxing officials were embarrassed into giving him a second rematch against Franco in a bid to repair the damage they caused him in the second fight.
There is no guarantee of victory, just heart.
SHORT SHOT
Next time the conversation rises about Cameron Smith’s elevation to rugby league Immortal status — or even Billy Slater — maybe the committee should just bypass those two and instead appoint their old Melbourne Storm coach Craig Bellamy instead.
Bellamy is now on the verge of something truly extraordinary in a coaching term filled with them.
A win next Thursday against the Gold Coast will put the Storm alongside Jack Gibson’s 1975 Eastern Suburbs Roosters team for the longest winning streak in the game’s 114-year history — with 19 straight wins.
Of course, the Roosters included the 1975 premiership in their streak, of which Bellamy is mindful. But Bellamy has had to overcome many challenges with Melbourne that the Roosters didn’t.
Gibson set the record in 1975 when there was no salary cap and football teams that had their leagues clubs travelling financially — as the Roosters did at the time — were able to poach the best talent.
He had a team that included Immortal Arthur Beetson and should-be-Immortal Ron Coote.
That Coote was overlooked for Immortal status in favour of others at the last induction should turn the judges pink with embarrassment.
The remarkable aspect to Bellamy’s streaks is that this Storm team has done it with none of the so-called “Big Four” — Smith, Slater, Cooper Cronk and Greg Inglis — still playing, with this team thought to be in something of a rebuild before season’s start.
While the salary cap has levelled the talent, the recent changes in rule interpretations have certainly swayed the pendulum in favour of teams with the best talent.
Melbourne has adapted to it better than all of them, switching from a defence-based team to attack.
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