BOXING and football are working-class sport in which nostalgia enjoys a commanding place. The plethora of legends in football matches is matched by the same when it comes to boxing greats of bygone eras deciding to lace them up one more time to take fans on a walk down memory lane, regardless of the flabs of loose flesh hanging over shorts in the process.

When Mike Tyson and Roy Jones Jr met in the ring for an exhibition bout at the tail end of 2020, this yearning for the return of a bygone age translated into 1.6 million pay per view buys with a concomitant $80 million (£63m) generated in revenue.

The fight itself, if between two rank novices, would have been met with a crescendo of boos and catcalls from the crowd in attendance. But the opportunity to see two bona fide legends of the game doing it again superseded focus on the quality produced, and thus everybody went home satisfied.