Jason Moloney Will Defend His WBO Title Against Saul Sanchez on January 13th in Canada

Press Release:

The bantamweight king from Down Under is ready to bring a little mayhem up north. Jason “Mayhem” Moloney will defend his WBO world title against Mexican-American challenger Saul Sanchez on Saturday, Jan. 13, at Videotron Centre in Quebec City, Canada.

Moloney-Sanchez will stream LIVE & exclusively in the U.S. on ESPN+ before the ESPN-televised doubleheader (10 p.m. ET/7 p.m. PT) featuring Artur Beterbiev’s WBC/IBF/WBO light heavyweight title defense against Callum “Mundo” Smith and undefeated super middleweight knockout artist Christian Mbilli against Rohan Murdock.

Moloney (26-2, 19 KOs), from Melbourne, Australia, traveled the long road to world title honors. In October 2018, he dropped a split decision to Emmanuel Rodriguez for the IBF bantamweight world title. Two years later, he fell to Naoya Inoue in seven rounds in a bid for the WBA, IBF and Ring Magazine titles. The former amateur standout stayed the course, reeling off victories over contenders Joshua Greer Jr. and Aston Palicte to position himself for a third crack at the brass ring. In May, he bested Filipino puncher Vincent Astrolabio by majority decision to claim his WBO title.

Los Angeles native Sanchez (20-2, 12 KOs) enters his first world title challenge riding a wave of momentum. After dropping a split decision to Eros Correa last June, Sanchez returned a year later to knock down Mexican puncher Franklin Gonzalez four times en route to a sixth-round stoppage victory. Sanchez rode that momentum to an October assignment against Filipino southpaw RV Deniega in Japan, where he won an eight-round unanimous decision.