He held the Commonwealth light-heavyweight title (2016 to 2018), British Champion, 2010 Commonwealth Gold Medalist and World Title IBF light-heavyweight Challenger in 2018. Callum Johnson is a British professional boxer who was born in Boston, Lincolnshire, England on 20 August 1985. Despite being English, he boxed six years for Scotland, qualifying thanks to his Grandmother who came from Springburn Glasgow.
We had a quick talk with him to know what happened during quarantine and what’s next. Dive in!
Jabtojab: How do you think boxing could impact the young British men and women’s life?
Calum :I think boxing is a great thing for you people to get involved in, it creates and builds confidence and self discipline. 99% of all boxers are polite, respectful people.
“To fight and then to win the European title”
Boxing fights in the UK are highly attended. Like football matches, where families gather together to go see a competition on a Saturday night. Do you think boxing culture could surpass football in the UK and why? No, boxing will never surpass football. Football is the most popular sport in the world. It’s not even close or ever will be close.
Live Sports at closed-doors are arriving, including boxing. It will be a completely different challenge. We were in quarantine for several months. No competition rhythm. Less training. How do you think it will be the physical and mental impact in an athlete like yourself? It all depends on the individual I think. Depending how they dealt with lock-down and what level of training they was able to do in lock-down. Speaking for my self it’s improved me as an all round athlete
How can professional athletes and coaches that depend of the events revenue, survive and overcome these difficult times? Did the British government give any kind of support? I can answer that question because I don’t know. For me it’s been hard because I haven’t fought for over a year but I can’t speak for other athletes.
What are your professional goals for the rest of the year? To fight and then to win the European title