Joshua Franco vs Andrew Moloney 3 in the works for August 14th ESPN main event

Mike Coppinger reports (after Ryan O’Hara broke the news on June 18, following up later at The Ring) that after a surprising upset in their first meeting and a hugely controversial no contest in their second, Joshua Franco and Andrew Moloney will meet for a third time in an August 14th ESPN/ESPN+ main event.

This is the first news we’ve gotten about this match since Golden Boy’s Eric Gomez mentioned they were working on it in February.

Franco (17-1-2, 8 KO) steadily overwhelmed the heavily favored Moloney (21-1, 14 KO) to claim the WBA “world” super flyweight title in June 2020, prompting Moloney to exercise his rematch clause. Moloney dominated early, closing Franco’s eye with a steady diet of stiff jabs, but historically awful referee Russell Mora claimed it was due to a headbutt.

The WBA ultimately ordered a trilogy match and, well, here we are.

Unfortunately for Top Rank, there’ll be no shortage of competition that night, including the rescheduled Teofimo Lopez vs George Kambosos Jr Triller PPV, Nonito Donaire’s bantamweight unification match with John Riel Casimero on Showtime, and potentially a clash between Vergil Ortiz Jr and Egidijus Kavaliauskas. They’ll need a hell of a supporting cast to stand out.