A fight that promised ugliness duly delivered. It was absorbing in a perverse, slobberknocker type of a way but the lack of correctly thrown punches, the absence of footwork, accuracy and the incompetence of the officiating made for a bizarre contest. Chisora departs. Wilder, sadly, continues.
As Derek Chisora fumbled in the darkness of middle age for a light switch he couldn't find and Deontay Wilder looked out from the shattered ramparts of what was always a poorly constructed castle with the nervous expression of someone waiting for a bailiff to knock, observers were encouraged to admire the 'gameness' of both men. To feel, not to judge, to love not to hate. The audacity of this verbal camouflage was admirable and, seemingly, contagious.
Commentators found new ways to disguise and excuse the technical abomination before you. Two men bereft of coordination or footwork trying with all their remaining might to hit each other. It was disorganised, chaotic, slow, plodding awfulness the like of which it is hard to conjure precedent for.
But please dear viewer, 'just love the romance of it all', ignore the officiating which bordered on the pantomime if not the scandalous - but nobody likes to talk about because nothing is ever done about it - and view the spectacle through the prism of a testimonial. Not a heavyweight prizefight. More a celebrity fundraiser.
Look for emotion not demolition. Remember all those other fights they've been in. Like a living eulogy to what once was. Because what is left is but a fraction of their respective primes. Fighters punching for pay long beyond their prime is not a new phenomenon, but it has ever been packaged as the defining USP. That the statistical parity of 49 fights going in was sufficient, that the memory of what once was is enough.
There might have been knockdowns in the fight, it is hard to be sure such was the calamitous performance by referee Mark Bates. The fixture seemed too hard for him. Too complicated. Too difficult. He exhibited little authority and little control was ever exerted as a result. His administration in the fights supposedly dramatic moments was, frankly, appalling. At one point it seemed he scored a knockdown for Wilder, counting to 8 as 42-year-old Chisora climbed back from between the ropes then deducted a point from Wilder for pushing him there. A rewatch would clarify, maybe. But it isn't a price worth paying. For all the froth and spittle of those paid to comment, those interviewed at ringside, Anthony Joshua among them, could see it for what it was. Farcical. But his respect for the memory and character of Chisora kept him on message. Fabio Wardley, who could yet fight the victor, articulate in his own summation too.
A rewatch would remind those who bore witness that Chisora's trainer pushed him from that 'knockdown' with two hands on his back. And that wasn't even his worst transgression. Entering the ring to try and pull Wilder off his fighter laying horizontally on the ropes an unprecedented moment of madness that would've been enough for Mickey Vann a generation ago.
A disqualification would've pleased nobody. Perhaps other than Mrs Chisora who appears to be the only person with sufficient care to tell Derek it is long since over. Boxing has given him enough and taken more than anyone should be willing to give. And that is with respect to the wins the big bruiser has accumulated over the past three years.
All of this may seem unkind. And it is, but sometimes, the truth is unkind. If promoters serve Deontay Wilder, who got the Split Decision win, to Moses Itauma, never mind Oleksandr Usyk, it will be ugly, but for entirely different reasons to last night.
I hope both men feel the love of those closest and can still hear the echoes of the noise made by 20,000 devotees this morning in much greater volume than the pain of the punches taken and the urge to continue that always re-emerges.
Leave fighting to the youngsters to whom they were once heroes, because neither man has any prospect of winning an important fight.