Given his success as an amateur, with 11 national titles and medals at the EU Championships, youth Europeans and youth worlds, the Irishman had every right to be bullish from the outset.

But with so many moving parts and factors outside of a boxer’s control, he quickly found out that things rarely go to plan.

That initial three-year deadline passed in February 2025, at which point the Galway southpaw sat at 10-0 after a promising, but unspectacular start to life in the paid code. Having never boxed beyond eight rounds, he was still some way off the world title conversation.

Since then, however, the momentum has been growing steadily. On Saturday night, he will face Sean Noakes at Copper Box Arena in what will be his fifth fight in 15 months. And a victory will almost certainly secure him a place inside the IBF’s top 15.

While it has been a slower process than he had initially anticipated, the amiable Molloy (14-0, 7 KOs) can feel the pace begin to quicken.

“It’s all about the right route and the right fights at the right times,” Molloy tells The Ring. “I have had a lot of setbacks early on in my career, fights fell through late on, and there were a lot of false promises. But I stuck at it, kept working hard, and now, thank God, I’m starting to reap the rewards.

“I’ve made a few changes over the past couple of years. I teamed up with Charlie Beatt at the New Era Boxing Gym, I signed with MF Pro, and I’ve got a fantastic manager in Thomas Stalker. So I know it will all come together eventually, and I’ll be ready when it does.”

His decision to work under Beatt means a man who might have otherwise been his divisional rival is now a close friend and stablemate. Harlem Eubank tops the bill at the Copper Box in his fight with David Papot as he attempts to move closer to a world title shot.

Eubank’s highest world ranking is with the IBF, which has him at No. 14, while Molloy, who holds the sanctioning body’s European welterweight title, is not too far behind.

But rather than attempting to chase down the Brighton man, Molloy says the pair have been helping each other in training camp.

“I’m not going to be fighting Harlem Eubank any time soon, that’s for sure,” he says with a laugh. “We train under the same coach, and that’s the last fight he’d want to put forward. But every welterweight in the world is chasing world titles, and me and Harlem are no different.

“Luckily, there’s not only the IBF, there are three other sanctioning bodies out there as well, so whatever way it comes, it comes. We are both confident we can become world champion. And to do that, all we have to worry about is making sure we keeping winning.

“I spend more time with Harlem and Charlie than my own family and girlfriend. It’s fantastic to have a competitive nature in the gym, but it’s also important that you get along. You know, these training camps are brutal. It's 12 weeks away from home. You just eat, sleep and train. That's basically it, but I'm chasing my dream.

“When I turned professional my goal was to become world champion, and it's been a goal since I was a kid to be able to call myself a boxer for a job. It is extremely hard, but that feeling you get when your hand is raised ... there's no feeling like it in the world.

“You look at your parents and see how proud they are. It means those hard months, hard couple of years, that's when it all pays off.”