Sharmba Mitchell
Encyclopedia
Sharmba David Mitchell known professionally as Sharmba Mitchell, is a boxer
Boxing
Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...

 who was WBA light welterweight champion.

Mitchell, nicknamed "Little Big Man", is a native of Takoma Park, Maryland
Takoma Park, Maryland
Takoma Park is a city in Montgomery County, Maryland, United States. It is a suburb of Washington, D.C., and part of the Washington Metropolitan Area. Founded in 1883 and incorporated in 1890, Takoma Park, informally called "Azalea City," is a Tree City USA and a nuclear-free zone...

, but a resident of Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

.

Professional career

Mitchell began his professional boxing career on September 23, 1988, knocking out
Knockout
A knockout is a fight-ending, winning criterion in several full-contact combat sports, such as boxing, kickboxing, Muay Thai, mixed martial arts, Karate and others sports involving striking...

 Eddie Colón
Eddie Colon
Edwin "Eddie" Carlos Colón is a Puerto Rican professional wrestler. He is currently signed by WWE wrestling on its Raw brand as Primo. He is the son of Carlos Colón, Sr. and the younger brother of wrestlers Stacy and Carly Colón, better known as Carlito in WWE...

 in three rounds at Atlantic City, New Jersey
Atlantic City, New Jersey
Atlantic City is a city in Atlantic County, New Jersey, United States, and a nationally renowned resort city for gambling, shopping and fine dining. The city also served as the inspiration for the American version of the board game Monopoly. Atlantic City is located on Absecon Island on the coast...

.

He had a mark of 14 wins and no losses with seven knockouts - including victories over former Olympic Games
Olympic Games
The Olympic Games is a major international event featuring summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world’s foremost sports competition where more than 200 nations participate...

 bronze
Bronze
Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...

 medalist Aristides Acevedo and over Dana Roston - when he met a former or future world champion for the first time inside a ring. On March 8, 1990, he beat the famed former world champion Rafael Limón
Rafael Limon
Rafael Limón is a Mexican former boxer who was a world champion in the Super Featherweight /Jr. Lightweight division twice.He is better known as Bazooka Limón. Limón shares his nickname, Bazooka, with at least two other known world boxing champions: Puerto Rico's Wilfredo "Bazooka" Gómez and...

 in Atlantic City by an eight-round unanimous decision, but he endured what was probably an embarrassing moment for him when Limón stripped Mitchell of his trunks during round seven. The fight was televised in the United States, and the pants-pulling moment made it into a number of blooper
Blooper
A blooper, also known as an outtake or boner is a short sequence of a film or video production, usually a deleted scene, containing a mistake made by a member of the cast or crew. It also refers to an error made during a live radio or TV broadcast or news report, usually in terms of misspoken words...

 videos.

Mitchell kept on winning, running his record up to 27-0 with sixteen knockouts, including a victory against former world title challenger Miguel Santana
Miguel Santana
Miguel Santana is a former boxer from Puerto Rico. Santana was born in Canovanas.-Boxing career:Miguel Santana had an award winning amateur boxing career, training alongside a young Jose Antonio Rivera, who is a two division world champion himself...

. He then fought former world champion Rocky Lockridge
Rocky Lockridge
Rocky Lockridge , is a former boxer and world champion. As a professional, he is perhaps best known for handing Roger Mayweather his first defeat, in a first-round knockout for the WBA super featherweight championship.-Amateur career:...

 on April 22, 1992, winning a ten-round unanimous decision.

Mitchell lost two fights in a row to begin 1994: one against future world champion Leavander Johnson
Leavander Johnson
Leavander Johnson was an American lightweight boxer from Atlantic City, New Jersey, who once held the International Boxing Federation version of the world title...

 in eight rounds, then to future two-time world lightweight champion Stevie Johnston
Stevie Johnston
Steven Earl Johnston is an American boxer in the lightweight division. Johnston is a two-time former WBC Lightweight Champion.- Amateur career :...

 in nine rounds. He did not lose another fight in the next seven years.

After six more wins in a row, including one over future world champion Terron Millett
Terron Millett
Terron Millett was a professional boxer in the Welterweight division and former IBF Light Welterweight Champion.-Amateur career:Millett was the 1991 National Golden Gloves Light welterweight champion.-Pro career:...

, Mitchell fought for the WBC
World Boxing Council
The World Boxing Council was initially established by 11 countries: the United States, Argentina, United Kingdom, France, Mexico, Philippines, Panama, Chile, Peru, Venezuela and Brazil plus Puerto Rico, met in Mexico City on February 14, 1963, upon invitation of the then President of Mexico, Adolfo...

 continental Americas light welterweight title in Dallas, Texas
Dallas, Texas
Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...

 on April 11, 1996. He won the title by knocking out Gilberto Floes in the second round.

On May 10, 1997, Mitchell defeated Jose Rafael Barboza by a twelve-round decision in Miami, Florida
Miami, Florida
Miami is a city located on the Atlantic coast in southeastern Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, the most populous county in Florida and the eighth-most populous county in the United States with a population of 2,500,625...

 to win the WBA
World Boxing Association
The World Boxing Association is a boxing organization that sanctions official matches, and awards the WBA world championship title at the professional level. It was previously known as the National Boxing Association before changing its name in 1962...

's Fedelatin belt in the same weight division. After two more victories, he got his first chance at winning a world title.

On October 10, 1998, he beat Moroccan
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...

 Khalid Rahilou
Khalid Rahilou
Khalid Rahilou Khalid Rahilou Khalid Rahilou (born June 19, 1966 in Argenteuil, Val-d'Oise, France was a French boxer of a Moroccan origin.-Professional career:Rahilou began his professional career in 1988 and won the WBA Light Welterweight title by defeating Frankie Randall by TKO in 1997...

 by a twelve-round unanimous decision in Paris, France, becoming the WBA light welterweight champion.

Mitchell retained his world title four times, his last successful defense being against Puerto Rican
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...

 Felix Flores
Felix Flores
Felix Flores is a professional boxer.Flores, who fights out of Puerto Rico, has been featured numerous times on Telemundo. In February 2005, Flores got his first loss on March 30, 1996 vs...

 on September 16, 2000, at Las Vegas
Las Vegas metropolitan area
The Las Vegas Valley is the heart of the Las Vegas-Paradise, NV MSA also known as the Las Vegas–Paradise–Henderson MSA which includes all of Clark County, Nevada, and is a metropolitan area in the southern part of the U.S. state of Nevada. The Valley is defined by the Las Vegas Valley landform, a ...

. Mitchell was dropped in the first round, but he recovered and edged the challenger by two scores of 116-111 and one of 116-113.

First fight with Tszyu

After that fight, demand rose for a unification title bout between Mitchell and Kostya Tszyu of Russia, the WBC
World Boxing Council
The World Boxing Council was initially established by 11 countries: the United States, Argentina, United Kingdom, France, Mexico, Philippines, Panama, Chile, Peru, Venezuela and Brazil plus Puerto Rico, met in Mexico City on February 14, 1963, upon invitation of the then President of Mexico, Adolfo...

 light welterweight champion.

The highly anticipated match took place in Las Vegas on February 3, 2002. The outcome was controversial, as Mitchell broke his knee
Knee
The knee joint joins the thigh with the leg and consists of two articulations: one between the fibula and tibia, and one between the femur and patella. It is the largest joint in the human body and is very complicated. The knee is a mobile trocho-ginglymus , which permits flexion and extension as...

 early in the fight and he could not continue after round seven. Although Mitchell was not knocked out in a conventional way, this nevertheless counted as a knockout loss in his record.

Mitchell then fought eight bouts, winning each of them, including victories over former world champion Vince Phillips
Vince Phillips
Vincent Edwards Phillips Sr. is an American boxer best known for upsetting and beating then undefeated Kostya Tszyu for the junior welterweight title.- Early life :...

 and top contenders Lovemore N'Dou
Lovemore N'dou
Lovemore N'dou is an Australian based South African boxer.He was the IBF world light welterweight champion, until he lost the title to Paul Malignaggi.-Fight career:...

 and Ben Tackie
Ben Tackie
Benjamin Wonder Tackie, , is a professional boxer. Tackie is known for his chin and his ability to throw a high volume of punches. All of his losses have come via decision.-Professional career:...

.

Rematch with Tszyu

Negotiations for a rematch with Tszyu had been taking place long before the fights with the aforementioned rivals. Tszyu, however, had his own health
Health
Health is the level of functional or metabolic efficiency of a living being. In humans, it is the general condition of a person's mind, body and spirit, usually meaning to be free from illness, injury or pain...

 problems, and the fight kept being cancelled. First scheduled for Australia and then for Moscow, the rematch
Tszyu vs. Mitchell II
Tszyu vs. Mitchell II was a boxing fight that took place on November 6, 2004 at the Glendale Arena, in Glendale, Arizona. It pitted world Jr. Welterweight champion Kostya Tszyu versus former world champion Sharmba Mitchell. Because of the peculiar circumstances of how their first fight ended, a...

 finally took place on November 6, 2004, in Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix is the capital, and largest city, of the U.S. state of Arizona, as well as the sixth most populated city in the United States. Phoenix is home to 1,445,632 people according to the official 2010 U.S. Census Bureau data...

. Mitchell was floored four times in the second bout with Tszyu before being stopped in round three, losing by knockout.

Losses to Mayweather and Williams

On November 19, 2005, Mitchell was defeated by Floyd Mayweather Jr.
Floyd Mayweather Jr.
Floyd Joy Mayweather, Jr. is an American professional boxer. He is a five-division world champion, where he has won seven world titles, as well as the lineal championship in three different weight classes...

 in their 147-lbs. non-title bout in Portland, Oregon
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...

. Mayweather dropped Mitchell in the third round with a straight right hand to the head, and again dropped him in the sixth with a hook to the body, ending the fight. During his most recent bout - against Paul Williams
Paul Williams (boxer)
Paul Williams is an American boxer and is the former two-time WBO welterweight champion.With a height of six-feet-one inch, Paul is considered extremely tall for the three divisions he campaigns in: Welterweight, Jr...

 in Reno, Nevada
Reno, Nevada
Reno is the county seat of Washoe County, Nevada, United States. The city has a population of about 220,500 and is the most populous Nevada city outside of the Las Vegas metropolitan area...

, on August 19, 2006 - Mitchell was knocked down in the third round, and three times in the fourth round. Referee Vic Drakulich stopped the bout at 2:57 when Mitchell arose wobbly from the final knockdown.

Mitchell has a professional boxing record of 57 wins and 6 losses, with 30 knockout wins.

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