WBO bantamweight champion Jason ‘Mayhem’ Moloney 26-2 (19) is the first to admit he was disappointed when Nonito Donaire came up short in his bid for the vacant WBC 118-pound championship against Alexandro Santiago 28-3-5 (14) at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada on July 29.
Mexican Santiago, 27, entered the fight as the underdog but turned out to be too young, too fresh and too tenacious as he outpointed the 40-year-old Filipino veteran by scores of 115-113 and 116-112 twice.
The result was a blow for Moloney, who was hoping victory for mulri-weight world champion Donaire would lead to a unification bout between the pair.
“It was a good fight.” Moloney said to ProBox TV. “I was a bit disappointed, I did want Nonito to win. Obviously for me it was the fight I wanted, he’s the bigger name, probably the biggest name in the division.
“To fight a future hall-of-famer and a legend of the lighter weights in a unification world title fight would have been huge. I did want him to win the WBC title and hoped to have a unification later in the year, but he was beaten. It’s unfortunate; I guess once you get to 40 years old there will be a time when father time catches up to you.
“He started off the fight well I thought. He took the first two or three rounds and I thought he was going to get the job done. I actually thought Santiago looked a bit out of his depth in there with Nonito, and then pretty quick, the tide turned. Nonito faded pretty hard, I thought he lost the second part of the fight pretty convincingly. The scores reflected I guess.”
The owner of the belt may have changed, but Moloney’s mission remains the same.
“I was disappointed but the goal for me is to win all the belts, to become undisputed.” Moloney said. “Whoever holds the belts is not too much of my concern, so now the focus is on Santiago. It’s definitely a fight I want, a fight I’m hopeful we can make happen. He’s a good fighter and I believe I beat him, I’m sure they would like a unification too.”
This Saturday night Moloney conqueror Emmanuel Rodriguez 21-2 (13) will throw down with Melvin Lopez 29-1 (19) in his bid to become a two-time IBF bantamweight champion. The WBA title is currently held by Takuma Inoue 18-1 (4), brother of Japanese phenom Nayoa ‘Monster’ Inoue 25-0 (22) who beat Moloney three years ago.
“I’ve said in the past that I want to be back in December and I would love the fight to be in Australia,” Moloney continued. “My team will have discussions and hopefully we can get Santiago over to Australia. It is still early days, that is what I would like to happen.
“I see Emmanuel Rodriguez is fighting this month as well, that is another name I’m going after. There are some exciting fights, I’m really keen for the biggest and best fights possible. I just have to sit back and work hard, but sit back and let my team do their job and put together the biggest fight we can, and hopefully that can happen in December in Australia.”
