Andrew Moloney files appeal to overturn no contest in Joshua Franco rematch

According to an ESPN report, former super flyweight titleholder Andrew Moloney has officially filed an appeal with NSAC in an attempt to overturn the controversial no-contest decision that resulted from his rematch with Joshua Franco. In that fight Moloney had gotten off to a great start, but an early ruling of an accidental head clash changed the course of the fight as Franco’s eye would quickly swell shut — to the point where his vision was impaired enough to call off the fight.

And because the stoppage was determined to be the result of an accidental foul, the fight was determined to be a no-contest, much to the dismay of Andrew Moloney who was sure he had secured himself a TKO win. Making matters worse was that there didn’t appear to be any clear indication of a head clash which caused the damage to Franco’s eye on replays, and even after 26 minutes of officials and NSAC reviewing only two rounds of action, the no-decision ruling was upheld.

So for however disappointed Moloney was, he’s now going through the motions of trying to plead his case to the Nevada commission, requesting a hearing to make his case. As part of a statement issued to NSAC regarding a hearing, Moloney’s attorney Josh Dublin wrote:

“Because there was indeed no headbutt, accidental or otherwise, the correct result should have been a technical knockout victory for Mr. Moloney. The consequence of Mr. Mora’s erroneous determination of an accidental headbutt denied Mr. Moloney the WBA Super-Flyweight World Title.”

NSAC executive Bob Bennett, who was on-hand for the fight and a participant in the ultimate decision, issued his own statement this week which cited “possible headbutts” at 1:12 and 2:08 in the first round and attached screenshots of those moments. In fact, Bennett even doubled down on his assertion that the correct decision was made, which certainly doesn’t seem to bode well for Moloney’s appeal chances.

“During this fight there was no conclusive evidence to overturn the referee’s decision,” the statement read. “In fact, based on the screen shots above the Referee was unequivocally correct.”

Good luck to Moloney on his appeal, I suppose, but he’ll probably need a lot more than that to get this result overturned.