Fights where the fighter moving up weight class became champion in their debut

Didn’t Ray Leonard do it at light middle as well ?

 

Broner over Paulie. He almost did it against DeMarco too but missed weight in the fight before.
Inoue did it against Narvaez, McDonnell, and Fulton.

 

He did not.

Ray was reigning WBC welterweight champion when he stepped up to junior middle to beat Ayub Kalule (in a fight I absolutely love and have watched many times) for the WBA belt at 154, but he had toyed with junior middle a bit earlier on his rise to the title.

Two years before Kalule, Ray stopped Tony Chiaverini — a junior middleweight contender of note — with Leonard weighing 151 to Tony’s 153.

In his fight immediately before that, Ray scaled 149 when he won a decision over Marcos Geraldo, who weighed 160 … so he was within the junior middle limit but was fighting a middleweight. Count that however you want.

Also in 1979, Ray beat Fernand Marcotte in a ‘how do we count this as far as weight class’ bout when Leonard scaled 149 1/2 and Marcotte was 155 1/2.

There was a quick KO of Ray Aldo Gonzalez, an Argentinian of no note despite a really good record (54-2-4 or some such) where Ray was 148 and his opponent 147, but allowing one pound over in a fight not for a title was a common agreement, so we’ll call this welter.

Finally, in December 1978 we had Leonard beating Armando Muniz in a bout where Ray was 149 and ‘Mando was 151, so definitely junior middle by definition.

So that’s two true junior middleweight fights against strong opposition (Chiaverini and Muniz) and a few more fights where Ray, at least, was a junior middle (with his opponent weighing in as a middle).