Career
Smalls spent his early years in the training camp of Muhammad Ali in Deer Lake, Pennsylvania and was featured in Jet magazine in 1973 at age three. He gained some minor celebrity for a photograph where Ali grimaces from one of young Smalls" punches. Smalls was a standout amateur with a reported record of 92-11.
He and also several military titles while serving in the United States. Navy, including the 1988 All-Armed Forces bantamweight championship.
Smalls began his pro career on March 30, 1993. Smalls earned the World Boxing Organization Inter-Contintental Featherweight title in 2003 by defeating Christian Favela.
The following year, he defeated Alvin Brown for the North American Boxing Organization Featherweight Championship. Smalls was inducted into the California Boxing Hall of Fame in October 2013.
Dogged Smalls throughout his career.
Smalls upset the boxing establishment when he appeared in the February 2005 issue of High Times magazine, posing for a photo wearing his belts and holding a marijuana bud. The article quoted him as saying that he regularly smoked marijuana during training.