Cases where someone moved down in weight to fight a bigger man?

Prince Charles Williams went down to fight James Toney ....he didn’t make any excuses after the fight though

 

Pacquiao must have done this at least once or twice.

 

Meldrick Taylor was the WBA champ at 147, he moved up face Terry Norris at a catchweight of 150.5, then went back to 147 to face his mandatory, Cristiano Espana.

As far as I know, Espana had spent his whole career at 147 and had some fights at 154, while Taylor won his first title at 140. Espana was about 3-4 inches taller than Taylor, and certainly the rangier fighter as well.

Sugar Ray Leonard's first fight after the Marvin Hagler one at 160 was to face Donny Lalonde at 168 for Lalonde's 175 lb. title and the vacant 168 lb. title. His next bout was the rematch with Tommy Hearns at a catchweight of 164. Hearns was obviously the taller and rangier fighter, and had won a title at 175 a couple years earlier. Manny Steward said he heard Leonard was on the juice because of how his body looked against Lalonde, and there was discussion of doing drug testing for it. The NSAC's response was basically "we don't test for steroids....we do test for cocaine and marijuana though!". Because surely, nothing helps a boxer like smoking weed.

James Toney had some fights where he was a HW in the early 2000s, he weighed around 200 for Saul Montana & Michael Rush. I think he got back to 190 for the cruiserweight title eliminator against Jason Robinson (highlight reel KO) and then for the win over Vassily Jirov.

 

After the DLH fight at 147, he fought Hatton for the title at 140. Manny & Hatton were pretty similar in terms of height, reach, and fight night weights, but obviously Hatton had a lot more experience fighting at 140, where as Manny was fighting at 130 just a year before this.