History of Fighters Jumping Weight for Title Bouts

Such examples that do exist are mostly more recent affairs, simply because there are more weight divisions now than before. When middleweight Ray Robinson took on light-heavyweight Joey Maxim, he only moved up one weight class at the time, but it was the functional equivalent of jumping two divisions today. But whereas today, it is inconceivable that someone could move directly from middleweight to a heavyweight title fight, when the likes of Bob Fitzsimmons and Sam Langford were fighting, the two divisions were right next to each other, light-heavyweight not being added until 1909. Nonetheless, both men are included for comparison’s sake.