The Guardian, not a publication usually given to the hype, bluster and bother of the tabloid, described Sunday's brawl between David Haye and Dereck Chisora after Chisora had lost to Vitali Klitschko as “a night that shamed boxing”. It’s somewhat dramatic but still understated. The use of the word “a” before “night” rather than “the night that shamed boxing” alerts us to the small fact that this is just one of many nights that done boxing a disservice.

Tabloids like the use of “the”. They like to be definitive, to make absolute statements, which they will ignore or laugh off as a “gosh, I was mistaken about Jacques Kallis/Veron Philander/Lopsy” when proved wrong. No balancing beam, just definitive yes or no. Of course there have been many other nights that have shamed boxing. There have also been shameful mornings, disgraceful lunchtimes and awful afternoons. But nights bring a lot more shame than other times of the day. It seems harder to sin during the daylight, although Don King has never let that bother him.

I saw Don King in a queue for passport control at Frankfurt Airport in 2009. I knew it was him because he was waving an American flag and saying “God bless Germany”. The gent at passport control looked bemused. He also looked long and hard at King’s passport. Lennox Lewis, who said the Klitschko-Chisora fight was a “mismatch” (perhaps forgetting his own mismatch back in 2001 when he was knocked out by Hasim Rahman), did the heavyweight world a favour when he knocked out Evander Holyfield to hold all of the major belts and thus leave King with no heavyweight of heavy weight. There was a story once told of King that he gave a boxer a contract to sign in the toilets, and then went to relieve himself. After he had zipped up, he offered the boxer a pen and told him to sign: “Hey man, you just peed. Wash your hands,” said the boxer. “Listen. I wash my hands before I touch myself. I’m that clean, man,” smiled King.

Back in 2001, when Lewis came to South Africa and found himself all at sea, the heavyweight field was a little light in talent. It is now as light as a feather, a retirement package for 40-something fighters. Corrie Sanders, who beat Wladimir Klitschko in 2003, came back a few years ago, but, thankfully, after taking one beating, called it a day. As his trainer, Harold Volbrecht, said of Sanders: “When he trained, he trained hard, but it was getting him to training that was the problem.” Sanders liked travelling with a set of golf clubs in his car, and if anyone called with the offer of a game, he would kick training into touch for the day.
Sanders became one of the few people to swear live on Super Saturday when he recalled how he had told Vitali, shortly after beating Wladimir, that he would “f**k him up, too”. Except he didn’t. He lost on a TKO in the eighth after a brave effort.

When Lewis came to South Africa full of himself, I spent two weeks running after him. It was a circus, which was appropriate as the fight was held in Carnival City. Lewis was an hour late for his first daytime press conference at the East Rand casino complex. Rahman’s manager, the likeable Stan Hoffman, was in a fury: “I’m pissed, man. We sped to get here. We got stopped by the cops and given a ticket. Who the hell is going to pay our R3 500 ticket? What’s (Lewis) playing at? This is not the way things should be done.”

At a function a little later that week, a journalist, who had been imbibing neat vodka all afternoon, leaned across Adrian Ogun, Lewis’ manager, tried to ask him a question and promptly fell on top of him in several unattractive pieces. We were awake at 1am for a 5am fight to suit US television, but Lewis was never awake and was caught cold. He was under-trained, jet-lagged and cocky. He deserved all he got for his attitude. It wasn’t a night that shamed boxing, but it was a night that showed the heavyweight division for the confusing muddle of a farce that it is, and probably always has been. Yesterday was just another day of shame for the sport.