Why in the World Won’t Anybody Fight Johnson for a Championship?

You would think there are enough championships to go around in boxing, particularly for someone so deserving as Mark Johnson.

These days in the sport of fists and fissures, don’t you merely grab a belt off the rack: WBA, WBC, IBF, IBC, WBO, WBU?

Yet Johnson, one of the best flyweights in the world, can’t seem to buy a world title.

In raising his record to 24-1, with 17 knockouts and 23 consecutive victories, Johnson has defeated a guy who would become champion, Alberto Jimenez, and a guy who used to be champion, Jose Quirino.

But he has yet to fight for a championship.

Johnson, 23, watched recently as Danny Romero became the first U.S. boxer to win a flyweight title since 1931.

“He broke the record I wanted,” Johnson said this week. “I would like to congratulate him on that. I wanted to break it, but Danny Romero turned me down. What can I do now?”

The only thing the southpaw Johnson can do is punch the clock every other month, continue to woo fans with his tenacious style and blazing hand speed and wait while his promoter, Forum Boxing, sifts through a maze of red tape.

Saturday, as part of a Forum pay-per-view show headlined by the 5-foot-1 Humberto (Chiquita) Gonzalez, the 5-3 Johnson defends his minor league Penta title against Puerto Rico’s Josue Camacho.

It will be Johnson’s 10th defense of his Penta crown.

“Nobody has ever defended a junior [minor] world title 10 times,” Johnson said. “Nobody!”

The frustration mounts. At Tuesday’s news conference, Johnson’s father and trainer, Abraham (Ham), stood up and issued a challenge to Gonzalez, the reigning 108-pound champion of the World Boxing Council and International Boxing Federation.

“Please,” Ham Johnson shouted at Gonzalez, “before you retire, please fight Mark Johnson.”

The two fighters are not even in the same weight class. Johnson, a 112-pounder, would have to drop to face Gonzalez.

Ham Johnson suggested the two meet at 110 pounds.

“Chiquita is the champion,” Gonzalez said pointedly through an interpreter. “We are tired of their big mouths. I will fight Johnson, but he’s got to make the [108-pound] weight.”

Anything is possible, but it seems unlikely Gonzalez, who is retiring soon after a brilliant career, would risk his legacy against such a foe as Johnson.

Johnson, in fact, stood up and delicately put his father in his place, saying that he was only concentrating on Saturday’s opponent.

“I’m not here to challenge Chiquita to fight,” he said.

It is assumed Johnson will get his title shot as a flyweight, but no one can say when.

“There’s not a hell of a lot we can do,” John Jackson, vice president of Forum Boxing, said. “Sometimes it’s better for a fighter to lose, so the champion doesn’t think he’s invincible. Obviously, you don’t want to do that. So you have to be patient.”

Why the problem getting a title shot?

Welcome to boxing.

Johnson’s best shot is in the WBC, where he is the No. 2 contender.

Jackson says the reigning champion, Russia’s Yuri Arbachakov, will not face Johnson until he becomes the mandatory No. 1 contender.

“And I don’t blame him,” Jackson said.

Johnson should become the No. 1 challenger by the fall, but under the rules Arbachakov would still have a year to fight him.

In the World Boxing Assn., Johnson is not ranked in the top 10. “I don’t know why,” Jackson said.

The World Boxing Organization champion is Alberto Jimenez, whom Johnson has defeated.

Jackson: “Jimenez is not anxious to fight him.”

Romero reigns in the IBF, and that matchup would seem a natural. Johnson says Romero won’t fight him. Jackson says discussions have taken place with Romero’s promoter, Bob Arum.

But, alas, Romero is planning to move up in weight.

The pressure is on to get Johnson a title.

Circling offshore, promoter Don King has made overtures to Johnson, reportedly offering him a two-fight deal to jump ship.

Johnson said he is loyal to the Forum, which signed him out of Washington, D.C., in 1993.

Johnson called Forum officials to tell them King was on the prowl.

“I don’t want the Forum to think that Mark Johnson is going behind their back and doing anything,” he said. “The Forum has been great to me.”

Johnson is also loyal to his outspoken father, Ham. A lot of father-son boxing teams don’t work.

This one seems to. Ham, who ran a youth boxing program in Washington, believed Mark was too scrawny to fight.

But Mark was inspired by older brother James, a top-notch amateur who still spars with his brother.

The father-son relationship hit a snag in 1990, when Johnson traveled to Belfast, Ireland, for his second professional fight.

He lost a four-round decision to Richie Wenton.

“My father made the decision to go,” Johnson recalled. “I didn’t want to do it. We made that decision--it was a terrible decision--but that’s when the simple fact came into play that, both of us will agree to things.

“It changed our whole [decision-making process] around for professional boxing. Both of us make the decisions now. If he talks about something and I disagree, it’s out the window.”

Fathers, of course, do not always make the most rational corner men.

Jimmy Garcia, who died of brain injuries 13 days after his May 6 fight against champion Gabriel Ruelas, was pushed throughout that fight by his father when it was clear his son had no chance of winning.

“The Jimmy Garcia fight was a terrible situation,” Johnson said. “I always tell my father, or whoever’s in my corner, that if I’m in that situation, stop the fight. If I’m in a situation where I’m getting beat bad, and have no way of winning the fight, stop it. There’s other fights.

That’s mandatory.”

Luckily, Johnson has rarely been on the receiving side of punishment.

But he does have cravings.

“I need a world title,” he said. “I want a world title. It’s everything I’ve been working for.”