Has any fighter in history jumped up 2 weight classes to ........

if you concider that those two weightclasses were a single weightclass in the old days, then it's still impressive but clearly not very special.

 

Hearns is quite interesting.

If I remember he went from middle back down to junior middle then up to light heavy then back down to middle then back up to super middle.

To be fair, when he first jumped up to light heavy he fought Dennis Andres who wasn't number one, I think Virgil Hill (who Hearns beat later on) or Charles Williams was number one at the time. Still impressive, though, and historic as Hearns became the first ever four weight and five weight champ during this time.

 

Henry Armstrong was reigning featherweight champ when he won the welterweight title from Barney Ross.

 

Armstrong also had a draw with the reigning Middleweight champ Garcia after holding the featherweight, lightweight and welterweight belts.

 

No he didn't. His last fight at 135 was in Februrary 1978. The Leonard fight was in June 1980. He had numerous fights in between, including a fight against a top WW in Carlos Palomino.

He had a couple fights at WW before facing Oscar (Rivera, Wise). Mosley was a big LW, it's interesting that he actually outweighed DLH, unofficially, on that night. DLH stopped being weighed by HBO on fight night for a long time after that.

 

Michael Spinks-Larry Holmes counts as there was a cruiserweight division then.

It was still only a few years old, and under a different weight limit (190 instead of 200) than today. Not very prestigious, to say the least.

I was gonna say Ray Leonard-Marvin Hagler, but Leonard's last fight, 3 years earlier, against Kevin Howard was at 154, not 147.

 

No he did not, it's a myth. Duran had been fighting @147 for 2 years before fighting SRL. He was 8-0 at the weight including a win over HOF'er Carlos Palomino.

 

Hopkins got robbed. Don't know what you're talking about

 

Cruiser wasn't very prestigious, but it's worth noting that, to this day, Michael Spinks is the only fighter in history to win the heavyweight championship and become the #1 heavyweight while he was still light heavyweight champion.

It's an incredible achievement that Spinks doesn't get nearly enough credit for IMO. No warmup fights to acclimate to the weight, nothing. He did it at the current Cruiserweight limit giving up 20+ pounds to a Hall of Famer fighting for history.

Interesting to note that, along with being a 5-1 underdog in that fight, Mike had no intentions of ever fighting at Heavyweight....until King offered him literally more than 10 times his last LHW defense to take on Larry.

 

People don't realize how great a fighter Michael Spinks was, because of the Mike Tyson fight.

Spinks was a true great who achieved a whole lot in only 32 pro fights.

 

yes,
that feat from ssm was very impressive, especially considering how badly he had
to win each round to really get the credit for winning said rounds.
not 100% certain but i seem to remember that ssm jump from 35 to 47 being
the nest odh fight after the tito loss ? is that right ?
would make it more impressive since many thought hoya was kinda ripped
in the tito fight.. so ssm had to really win rounds pretty clearly to get them on the
cards.

personally i think the tito odh fight was kind of like paq bradley.

most people thought odh won widely while i had both fights very close but
i was still very very surprised, almost shocked at both decisions


besides him and duran, i dont know of any others..

does jones jr skipping cruiser make him official too ?

 

Mosley had two fights at 147 before facing DLH, against Rivera and Wise. After the Tito fight, DLH fought Coley, and then Mosley.

Duran fought for over 2 years after his last fight at 135 before facing Leonard. Some around 140, some around 147, including a win over a top-rated WW in Palomino.

Jones didn't take on the #1 HW, so that doesn't apply to the original post.

 

:good

Which is a damn shame. At the very least, the guy's a nightmare for anyone at 175, and that's without his career-defining accomplishment, which is unique in boxing history. He really does get (unjustly) sold short because of how Tyson destroyed him.

 

That's actually quit a common myth in boxing. Duran actually fought at least 3 times at 147 before he fought Leonard. Against Carlos Palomino, Joseph Nsabuga and Zeferino Gonzalez. I think it was because he was maybe still the lightweight champ when he beat Leonard that people think he went straight from lightweight to fight Leonard at welter, im not 100% on that though. Duran vs Palamino was defo a welterweight fight and that was 3 or 4 fights before he stepped in the ring with Sugar Ray :good