Most impressive title win from another champ in a different divisions

I'm including guys who had vacated shortly before, and sometimes it gets tricky with the lineal titles but no alphabet title. And some of these were more alphabet title-holders as opposed to lineal or "recognized as #1 in the division", but here are some:

Roy Jones over James Toney
James Toney over Iran Barkley
Michael Spinks over Larry Holmes
Julio Cesar Chavez over Edwin Rosario
Marco Antonio Barrera over Naseem Hamed
Manny Pacquiao over Marco Antonio Barrera
Manny Pacquiao over Ricky Hatton
Manny Pacquiao over Miguel Cotto

Sugar Ray Robinson had vacated his WW title 6 months before the St. Valentine Day's Massacre win over Jake LaMotta. LaMotta impressed me with his double jab, but Robinson slowly broke him down, thanks in part to those uppercuts to the body (and LaMotta's reported troubles of making weight). The last three rounds really were a massacre.

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Michael Spinks vs. Larry Holmes!

 

I always felt that Adonis Stevenson icing Chad Dawson like that, in only his second fight at the weight, was rather impressive.

 

I can't think of anything more impressive than featherweight champ Henry Armstrong jumping up to welter to take that title from Barney Ross ... and then dropping down to lightweight in his very next fight to take that crown from Lou Ambers.

 

Armstrong only weighed 133-1/2 pounds to take the WW title from Ross (142 lbs).

 

Easy,...for me, it was Emile Griffith W15 Dick Tiger in April 1966. Tiger had just regained his precious middleweight title from Joey Giardello in November of the previous year...Griffith, the welterweight champ, moves all the way to middleweight...no "catchweight" ****, like these pussies of today....giving up 10 lbs, and outboxed perhaps the strongest middleweight champion in history, at times even outstrengthing him as well...becoming the first to deck the iron chinned Tiger-man. This was the equivalent at the time, of decking Marvin Hagler...
Hagler was what, 33 at the time he retired after never having really been decked in '87? Well, at the time of the Griffith fight, Tiger was 37,...and never before decked. I won't gloss over the fact that the decision was very close,...but it wasn't a robbery, and Griff very briefly held both the welter and middleweight titles simultaneously. It was a Class A performance for the most part by EG..

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Michael Moorer. Spinks got all the accolades for defeating a aging Holmes.
Moorer yes he acclimatized to HW before winning against a then lightly regarded
WBO title from Cooper but he then vacated it and won the HW against a
legitimate champion in Holyfield.
In what was impressive performance which is vastly underrated.

 

Mind boggling isn't it. He held those 3 titles simultaneously and won all of them in less than a year from memory. This was when there were only 8 divisions! He won the Welterweight title weighing comfortably inside the Lightweight limit.

Armstrong is genuinely in the mix for greatest ever.

 

Spinks and Moorer were actually going to be my picks jupp. To come up from light heavy to the big guy s, and be successful, takes some doing. It took 80 odd years for a lght heavy to do that, so it says something about the two.

 

Charles is right there with them too. He was the best 175 for ages and avoided. He whupped plenty that won the title and moved up to win the big belt. Fought around middleweight for a bit too early in the pro's.

 

Duran v Barkley is up there for me

 

Tommy Hearns in his first fight at Light Heavyweight beat WBC champion Dennis Andries, scoring 6 knockdowns before it was stopped. In his very next fight, Hearns dropped back to middleweight and knocked out Juan Roldan in a exciting shootout for one of the middleweight titles that had been vacated in the aftermath of Hagler/Leonard.

 

I watched that fight on ABC Wide World of Sports I believe....great performance by EGriffith that day.

Tiger's previous fights: Joey G, Jose Gonzalez, Don Fulmer, Joey Archer, Rivero, Rubin Carter, Joey G., Muller, then EGriffith (Tiger lost),.............. then stepping up to take Jose Torres' LtHvy title.

 

What Ray Leonard did to Kalule stands out to me.