Ear To The Street
Too Sharp, The Little Titanic
Mark "Too Sharp" Johnson is known as the biggest little man in boxing. Never before was there a flyweight boxer considered in the top 3 pound for pound best boxers in the world. That is, not until Mark "Too Sharp" Johnson came along who joined two of boxing's elites, Roy Jones, Jr. and Sugar Shane Mosley. As an amateur, Mark stood out as special, and then in 1988 when he won the Golden Gloves nationals in the 106lbs. weight class, he finally got his turn to really shine.
The following year Mark fought in the U.S. ABF Nationals, which was comprised of the top amateur boxers in the country to compete for a berth into the Olympic Trial. Mark went through the tournament undefeated, earning the right to participate in the trials and became the youngest fighter ever to do so at the age of 16.
At the Olympic Trials, Mark and his older brother James Harris were pitted against each other in the first round of boxing. When their corners protested, the Olympic committee required Mark and James to prove their relationship, so they sent for their mother, Patricia Harris, to fly in and bring the original copies of their birth certificates. Once the documents were authenticated, the committee put the brothers at opposite ends of the bracket. The both of them made it all the way to the final four where Mark was matched up with Eric Griffin, and his brother would fight Michael Carbajal.
Mark loss his fight and was eliminated, but when Griffin was tested positive for marijuana, he was disqualified from advancing. Mark's camp then fought to get him re-instated because his opponent became ineligible to advance, but the Olympic committee was not having it. Neither fighter would be able to fight in the finals. Mark's brother James went on to lose to Carbajal allowing him to advance to the Olympics without having to fight a finalist contender. Read more about Mark's Rise to greatness.
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