Fight fans will have not one but two Northern Area championship fights to savour in July after Matt McCallum was handed a shot at glory.
The unbeaten Tynesider will have a crack at the vacant super-middleweight title against Barrow-in-Furness fighter Mike McGoldrick in Bolton on Friday, July 1.
Doubtless Matt ‘Stark’ will not be shy of support but fans who can’t make it across the Pennines will get to see it on FightZone.
This exciting news comes just days after punch-lines reported that Seaham’s Jordan Ellison, the Northern Area title holder at light-welterweight, will meet Adam Cope, from Hartlepool, for the vacant lightweight belt on Sunday, July 17 in Sunderland.
While Ellison and Cope will collide at the Stadium of Light, it will be another football destination for McCallum with the University of Bolton Stadium, or Reebok in old money, the venue. Or the Arena attached to it anyway.
Matt might be indoors rather than outside, but this is a huge opportunity for the man known as the ‘King of the North’ to make it official.
Rather like Cope v Ellison, this has cracker written all over it.
McCallum (pictured left) has transferred seamlessly from the unlicensed fight scene into the Marquess of Queensberry rules.
The 31-year-old Jobes Boxing star has won all four of his professional appearances.
He is worthy of this opening on the evidence of his explosive North-East derby scrap with Greg O’Neil, Matt beating the Horden fighter 39-37 at the Hilton in Gateshead last December.
McCallum certainly deserves better than his last bout in April at Houghton, where he was up against opposition nowhere near his level.
His six-rounder against Seamus Devlin was as one-sided an 18 minutes as you will ever see in a boxing ring, but this 10-round match of the MMs promises to be a titanic battle.
McGoldrick boasts a good record of eight wins (two by stoppage) with only one blemish, a second-round stoppage by Zak Chelli in the final of the BOXXER tournament in November 2020.
To Mike’s credit, the Londoner is a very formidable foe and earlier in the night he’d come through a three-round tear-up with Harry Woods in the semi.
The 37-year-old has proven a popular figure at the Bolton venue with four of his eight wins coming at this auditorium.
It will be the first time the Northern Area super-middleweight belt has been contested since Sunderland’s Ryan Kerr beat Cumbrian Gary Dixon in round seven at Dunston in 2004, while other previous winners are Hartlepool’s Ian Cooper and Davey Johnson, from Boldon.
Words: Roy Kelly Picture: Jennifer Charlton
