Fighters who didn’t win a world title until they moved up.

Great thread. Great contributors. Cheers Lads

 

Really?

 

Yeah his first pro fight he was just over the limit and has never had a pro fight at 175.

Edit - where the misconception comes in is one of his early fights was billed as for some light heavyweight title.

 

I believe Carpentier started down around fly or feather, was beaten in a tournament to determine a successor to Ketchel @ MW, & ultimately didn't become a universally recognized champ until he moved up to LHW.

 

For his first four or five fights Evander weighed between 176 and 178.

I watched his first fight live on ABC against Lionel Byram.

It was billed as a LHW fight.

I mean technically I guess since the fighters were a fraction over 175 you could consider it Cruiserweight.

Box rec has the weights and he didn't hit 180 till like his fifth or sixth fight. And he wasn't fighting cruiserweights who he spotted weight to. His opponents for these fights were also Light Heavyweights.

 

Sugar Ray Robinson started at lightweight and beat the lightweight champion Sammy Angott in a non-title bout within a year of turning pro.

I think Chris Byrd weighed below 170 in his first pro fight.

Naseem Hamed started much lower and won a regional title at bantamweight before going on to win titles at 126

 

That fight was incorrectly billed as a LHW fight. Originally it was very likely meant to be and he didn't make weight. I can't give him credit for fighting at light heavyweight when he never once in his professional life made the weight. It's just factually incorrect. You can't win the title there weighing 176 or 178. If he could make 175 reasonably comfortably at the time he may well have chased a quick title shot then moved straight up to cruiser.

Technically the fights definitely weren't light heavyweight.

Strict but 100% factual. Per the thread title if we also looked at fighters that were 1 or 2 pounds over the next lowest weight we'd have dozens of extra names that never truly made that weight but come "close". I'm pretty sure i came across one on my list.

Even if Holy had one single weigh in where he was 175 or under i'd say yep he did indeed compete at 175.

 

Bobby Czyz.

 

I’ve looked into this and don’t think the record supports it.

He had 24 fights before fighting Cervantes. In only three of the 14 in which boxrec records a weight was he at 135 or within a pound of it. In only one recorded fight did he actually make lightweight. In 11 others where we have a weight, he was more than one pound over 135, usually around 138-ish, and as high as 143. He was 137 in his debut.

Aaron’s two biggest wins prior to Cervantes were over Peppermint Frazier, who hadn’t recorded a fight at lightweight in like seven or eight years and was clearly campaigning at 140 (his next fight after Pryor he weighed 147) and Al Ford, a former Canadian and Commonwealth lightweight champ … but his previous fight was for the Canadian 140-pound title and while he had occasionally scaled 135 in recent years more commonly was fighting at 140 or above (he fought Ken Buchanan with both men contracted at 143 for instance).

I just think that was PR stuff to say ‘he couldn’t get a title shot at 135.’ He didn’t even beat a single contender at 135, nor did he even fight journeymen in stay-busy fights at that weight very often.

 

I’m thinking the winner here is going to be Jimmy Ellis:

Fought as light as 155 3/4, debuted at 157, spent several years at middleweight and then between 1964 and ‘66 had a couple fights at light heavy before settling in as a full-blown heavyweight.

He won his first title weighing 197 vs. Jerry Quarry.

He fought amateur at super welterweight, which I think was 156 at the time.

 

It's a fact. Period. He wa a lightweight, fought lightweights and had his first significant 140 pound fight for the title.

 

He had zero significant fights before he fought for a title. But his biggest fights before that were vs. Peppermint Frazier and Al Ford, and those were at 140 … not 135.

He had exactly one fight at 135 where we have a weight. So it is accurate to say he fought at lightweight.

It is NOT accurate to say he MOVED UP to 140 to fight for a title (every fight with a reported weight in his career to that point except one was at 140, so he actually MOVED DOWN for ONE FIGHT at 135) or that he ‘couldn’t get a title fight at 135’ except in the sense that he’d done absolutely zero to qualify for a title fight at 135 since he wasn’t fighting in that division and had never beaten a lightweight contender.

If you want to get technical, he MOVED DOWN to fight Cervantes since his fight immediately preceding his title-winning effort was at 143.