Callum Simpson reminds us of the importance of boxers like Callum Simpson

On the same night that many of boxing’s movers and shakers and givers and takers descended on London for The Ring awards ceremony, a British super middleweight title fight was happening in Sheffield between Callum Simpson and Steed Woodall which kept the sport rooted in some kind of reality. 

It was in fact rather fitting that the two events should occur at the same time. On the one hand, you had all the glitz and glamour of a lavish awards ceremony, while on the other you had a local hero fighting in front of his friends and family in relative obscurity. 

In London, there were boxers winning awards, not fights, and the ones who weren’t were just desperate to be seen, the event itself a reminder of the importance of being seen, heard and paid in 2025. Simpson, meanwhile, busy defending his belts in Sheffield, remains a throwback in every sense; a fighter from a bygone era who seems oddly out of place at a time when everything is bright and shiny and loud. Some would even say that the ticket-seller whose aim is to gather his local community in one place a few times a year is now a dying breed. 

Selling tickets, of course, used to be the goal for most who boxed for a living, but nowadays there are other ways to become either popular or rich. Nowadays it is less about cultivating a local following and more about collecting followers online, something anybody can do with both a phone and an ego. It does not even require one to leave the house. 

“I’m Barnsley born and bred,” Simpson, 28, told BoxingScene before stopping Woodall in two rounds. “I’m a proud Yorkshire lad, and I think that resonates with a lot of people, both from Barnsley and Yorkshire. We’re very proud people. Naturally, your profile grows from that. We’ve got a football team – we’ve done all right in the past – but it’s surreal, even for me. Watching the likes of Kell Brook; Prince Naseem [Hamed]; Josh Warrington; Ricky Hatton – amazing fighters, not too far from me – on the TV… I used to watch Kell Brook at the Sheffield Arena and think, I wish that were me. You know what? Why can’t that be me?”

Back in August, Simpson boxed in front of 7,000 fans at Oakwell, the home of Barnsley Football Club, and now hopes to return to that venue, with an even larger crowd, possibly in May. The more he wins, and the more success he has, the more his profile will naturally grow and the more fans he will attract from areas outside Barnsley and the Yorkshire area. It is then at that point he will see other pathways and roads, some of which will pull him away from Barnsley, his home, and perhaps require him to box outside Great Britain altogether. 

That is just the way boxing is at present, with many local heroes enticed from their natural habitat in order to secure big paydays in Saudi Arabia during Riyadh Season. It is hard to criticise them for this, especially when boxing is so dangerous and a career in the sport so short and precarious, but one still can’t help but wonder what impact a mass exodus will have on the soil of so-called boxing hotbeds. 

In Britain, stadium fights were for years the focal point of the boxing calendar and represented the apex for so many fighters. They were, for most, the culmination of a tough career and even the best fighters would have to toil for years to reach the level of popularity needed to pack out such venues. 

When Carl Froch and George Groves fought at Wembley Stadium in 2014, it captured the imagination of the British public and we never heard the end of it. This then triggered a spate of Anthony Joshua-led stadium fights, as well as the rise of other ticket-sellers on a smaller scale whose affiliation with a football club facilitated their ability to corner a certain market. Fighters like Josh Warrington, for example, made Leeds’ Elland Road his home, and more recently Chis Billam-Smith, the former WBO cruiserweight champion, had his most famous and satisfying night at AFC Bournemouth’s Vitality Stadium. 

“From a business point of view, and from the promoter’s point of view, it’s probably easier to sell tickets because the database is there for the fans and they know a lot of the season ticket holders are going to go because there’s a novelty to it,” Billam-Smith told me. “They’re going to go to their favourite ground to watch boxing instead of football. It’s never been done at Bournemouth, it’s never been done at Selhurst Park [where Billam-Smith fought Richard Riakporhe last year], and that means it’s one of those occasions where you want to say, ‘Yeah, I was there.’ Down in Bournemouth, specifically, there hasn’t been a lot of boxing in recent years and suddenly it’s getting a bit of a resurgence and the people in the community want to be a part of that. 

“It’s the same for these Wembley fights. Joshua vs. [Daniel] Dubois, for example, is a fight between two British heavyweights at Wembley and people will want to say, ‘I was there.’ That’s why these stadium fights feel like special nights: because they are different from what we see as normal boxing events. The football clubs know this and they want to get involved. They see one club do it and now they want to do it as well. We’ve seen Barnsley, Bournemouth, Crystal Palace all host fights recently and they’ve all done it in slightly different ways. The fans turn out every time because it’s a new experience. The whole town gets behind the football club when the club is in a smaller town, or area, and that means that if there is an event at the stadium, whether it’s a music gig or a boxing match, you’re almost guaranteed to sell tickets and attract interest.”

Having beaten Riakporhe at Selhurst Park, Billam-Smith then went in search of another belt to add to the WBO belt he already owned. This led him to Gilberto Ramirez, the WBA champion, and Saudi Arabia, which is where Billam-Smith ultimately lost against Ramirez back in November. He did so before a small, low-key crowd, and noticeable during the defeat was how only a pocket of fans in the corner of the venue were there supporting Billam-Smith and willing him on. Ordinarily, of course, he would have been backed by all four sides of an arena and, once, an entire football stadium. 

Perhaps this just represents the logical progression now for boxers. Perhaps we should just accept that they go from small venues to bigger venues to Saudi Arabia and that so long as they get paid what they deserve – which, for them, is all that matters – it is largely irrelevant how many of their own fans they have in attendance on fight night. 

Yet, when watching Callum Simpson interact with his fans both before and after his fight against Steed Woodall, one was reminded of the unique and special bond that exists between a boxer and their fanbase. It is, for so many of them, a major driving force. It gets them out of the bed each morning. It spurs them on during a fight. It also grounds the sport itself in something real, tangible, human. 

This was never more evident than when Sky Sports showed a video before the Woodall fight which featured Simpson and other members of his family talking about the tragic death of his sister, Lily-Rae, last year. She had been in attendance at Oakwell to watch her brother beat Zak Chelli in August and could be seen in one clip passionately chanting his name among her Barnsley natives: “There’s only one Callum Simpson, one Callum Simpson…” She then died in an accident while on holiday a few weeks later. 

To watch Simpson attempt to discuss this tragedy on camera was to be reminded that professional fighters are real people who experience real pain. One also got the sense that Oakwell, for the Simpsons, was more than just the venue of a British title win in August. It was their living room writ large. 

“I’m so proud to be able to bring [stadium fights] to Barnsley – because it’s a small town, we’re a very tight-knit community,” Simpson, 16-0 (11), said. “A lot of people I knew personally – I’d look around during my ring walk and saw Jack from school; Amanda my mum’s mate; my dad’s pal. It’s a real personal connection. A lot of people who are amazing boxers have no fanbase; others, an average boxer, but a massive fanbase. I like to think I’m a good boxer and have a good fanbase as well. That’s one of the reasons we’re going to get to the top. As much as it’s me training and turning up on fight night and doing a good job, it’s as much the fans and the supporters as well. If people weren’t coming to the fights, Boxxer wouldn’t invest in me and Sky wouldn’t be bothered. But luckily fans have got behind me and luckily I deliver in the ring as well.”

Callum Simpson may not have won any awards on Saturday night, but he won plenty of hearts.