THE Florida Boxing Commission stands disgraced. Promotion outfit Triller Fight Club stands disgraced. Ringside commentators 50 Cent and Shawn Porter stand disgraced. Vitor Belfort and his team stand disgraced. In particular, the team of Evander Holyfield stand disgraced.

What unfolded last weekend at that renowned fight venue — The Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Miami, Florida — was the most grotesque car crash ever witnessed in a boxing ring, which given the competition for this particular honour, is saying something.

Evander Holyfield turned pro in 1984 after an amateur career which culminated in a controversial bronze at the Los Angeles Olympics, held the same year.

That he was allowed to get within a mile of a boxing ring in a pair of trunks with boxing gloves on over three decades later, at age 58, is tantamount to a crime.

Coming in as a late replacement for Oscar De La Hoya to face 44-year-old former MMA champion Belfort, when the former pulled out after becoming stricken with Covid, the “fight” — originally scheduled to take place at the Staples Center in LA — was moved to Florida.

This after the California Athletic Commission rightly refused to sanction a bout involving a shot-to-pieces Holyfield. That the Florida Boxing Commission did, makes the Sunshine State a place of no shame.

Compounding this ghoulish experiment in human flesh was the presence of Donald Trump at ringside commentating — just as any self-respecting ex-US president would on the 20th anniversary of September 11.

How promoters, Triller Fight Club, got away with selling this freak show as a live contest rather than an exhibition or novelty event is incomprehensible.

That it lasted less than two minutes before an unsteady Holyfield, tottering around the ring struggling to maintain what balance he still has after 57 professional fights, was knocked down and stopped was entirely predictable.

The tarnishing of the legacy of one of the all-time great cruiserweights and heavyweights to grace the sport should be a wake-up call to those in positions of influence in boxing who still retain a scintilla of integrity.

Holyfield is clearly broke and desperate for money, which is precisely why fallen boxing legends like him need saving from themselves. With the mountain of cash currently swirling around the fight game, a fund could easily be set up to help ex-champions and legends who fall on hard times in their dotage.

No such fund will ever be forthcoming, however — not with the culture of greed and selfishness which sadly dominates the sport.

Holyfield was no ordinary fighter in his prime. A pumped-up cruiser, he was involved in too many wars for comfort against some of the hardest punching heavyweights to ever occupy a ring.

Ray Mercer, Riddick Bowe, Lennox Lewis, Mike Tyson, Larry Holmes, George Foreman, the calibre of guys he fought is as scary as it gets. This is a man who’s endured everything there is to endure in boxing and survived.

It is too soon to tell whether he will survive the shredding of his dignity in Miami last weekend. No criticism of the fighter is implied. This is reserved for those who thought it acceptable to let him risk his already fragile health, doing so with money not the good of the sport or Holyfield in mind.

On the same bill on the same night, another former cruiserweight and heavyweight world champion came out of retirement. David Haye faced nightclub owner and close friend Joe Fournier in what turned out to be the equivalent of a bad sparring session.

Haye claimed afterwards to have made more money than he did fighting Tony Bellew, so any face lost will have been more than compensated. It just boggles that so many would pay to watch this mess.

Oh, and just to top things off, afterwards Holyfield called out Tyson, challenging him to a third fight, while Haye felt emboldened enough to call out current world heavyweight champ, Tyson Fury.

Rumours that the flapping of white coats could be heard in the background as they did are yet to be confirmed.

Meanwhile, for those still interested in boxing as the noble rather than ignoble art, take yourself over to BBC iPlayer, where a scintillating documentary on the life of Ken Buchanan is currently available.

Titled Undisputed, it is a long overdue and fitting tribute to this son of the Edinburgh working class whose remarkable achievement in becoming the undisputed lightweight champion of the world and unofficial King of Madison Square Garden in New York in the early 1970s will likely never be equalled by another fighter from these islands.

Buchanan’s greatness is exemplified in the fact that he fought all over the world — Panama, the US, Puerto Rico, Japan, Canada, all over Europe. Moreover, he was the first British fighter to win the American Boxing Writers’ Fighter of the Year Award, beating Ali and Joe Frazier the year he won it, and in his era was voted the best European fighter to ever fight in the US.

I will never forget the day he arrived at Freddie Roach’s Wild Card Boxing Club in Los Angeles back in 2009. He was with a delegation of fighters (among them an up-and-coming amateur called Josh Taylor) and trainers from Lochend Boxing Club in Edinburgh, run by Buchanan’s close friend Terry McCormack.

McCormack was keen for Buchanan to meet Roach, as the latter had often cited Buchanan as his favourite fighter when he was coming through the ranks himself.

I recall Buchanan shuffling into Wild Card in his street clothes and quietly taking up position in one of the chairs lined up against the back wall, from where he cast his eyes over the gym and the various fighters and others who were in training at the time.

I was already in the gym having a workout when the Lochend boys arrived, and I sauntered over and sat down beside Buchanan for a chat. Moments later, a young fighter hitting one of the bags turned, saw him sitting there and announced: “It’s Ken Buchanan!”

Thereafter, for the next few minutes, Buchanan was crowded by fighters and others coming over to shake his hand and pay their respects. Me, I’d never seen anything like it. Once the fuss was over, Buchanan turned to me and in a low voice quipped: “That whiny accent’s a fucking pain in the airse.”