Australian boxer Andrew Moloney will finally get another world title shot, after multiple delays and location changes scuppered his last fight.
Moloney endured a frustrating time in August when he flew to Mexico for an IBF eliminator against Argi Cortes, with the winner awarded mandatory status to challenge Willibaldo Garcia for the super flyweight crown.
The fight was pushed back twice, the second delay coming after Moloney (27-4) had already landed, meaning he was forced to spend almost five weeks in central Mexico.
He flew home after his opponent's management team proposed another location change less than a week out from the bout, wanting to move the fight to Cortes's Mexico City home town nearly 1000km away and at higher altitude.
Moloney's team successfully argued Cortes breached the terms of his contract, and he was awarded mandatory status.
It was the latest chapter in the Victorian product's tumultuous career, with the 34-year-old winning the WBA's interim super flyweight belt in 2019, before being elevated four months later.
A controversial trilogy loss to Joshua Franco stripped him of that status, before Moloney was spectacularly knocked out by superstar Junto Nakatani in a 2023 world title fight.
He then copped a dubious points loss to Mexican Pedro Guevara in an interim world title fight in Perth last year, which prompted a furious Moloney to announce his immediate retirement, which he later rescinded.
The 2014 Commonwealth Games gold medallist finally got some good news, with the IBF mandating his next fight, although he still has to show some patience.
The IBF has agreed to champion Garcia's request for an exemption to fight Japan's Kenshiro Teraji on December 27 in Saudi Arabia.
They will meet on an undercard featuring Japan's best fighters and headlined by Naoya Inoue, who defends his undisputed super-bantamweight world title against Mexico's Alan David Picasso Romero.
The winner of the Garcia-Teraji fight will meet Moloney in a bout that must be held before June 25 next year.
Teraji, 33, lost his WBA and WBC flyweight titles to American Ricardo Sandoval in his last outing and will try to become a three-weight world champion against Garcia.
The 35-year-old Garcia has six losses and two draws in 32 bouts, while Teraji has just two defeats in 27 fights.
Meanwhile, Moloney's twin brother and former world bantamweight champion Jason will also return to the ring on the card for Jai Opetaia's world title defence against Huseyin Cinkara on the Gold Coast in early December.
