It’s been a long time since anyone referred to boxing as a gentleman’s sport. Or, at least, a long time since they did it with a straight face. Any lingering pretensions of pugilism as an honorable and noble pursuit have vanished forever following the ugly press conference brawl between Dereck Chisora and fellow Briton David Haye in Germany.

As the quality of boxing’s heavyweight division has declined, so the outrageousness of pre and post-fight “stunts” has increased. But all the experts I have spoken to insist this was not a set-up. It was a genuine outbreak of madness that has demeaned a sport already, metaphorically, winded and hanging on for the bell.

Haye's nonstop trash talk in the leadup to his disappointing defeat by Wladimir Klitschko and subsequent retirement last year hardly helped matters. If this incident was the result of an attempt to stir up interest in his bid to return and face Chisora's Saturday conqueror, Vitali Klitschko, then it can only leave a sour taste in the mouth of fight fans.

Muhammad Ali was the master of trash talk, but he had the wit and the talent to back it up.

For decades, boxing’s validity has been weakened by multiple governing bodies, a bewildering array of world champions at every weight class and frequently unjustifiable points decisions in major title contests. This latest scandal is another major blow.

I am not trying to suggest it will spell the end of boxing. While there is still money to be made from it, the fight game will continue. But when Chisora stepped down from the news conference stage in Munich to tangle with Haye, it plunged boxing's reputation further below the cut-off line for those fans who like their sport hard but also fair.

While racism continues to plague parts of European football, and Asian gambling rings fuel cricket’s match-fixing curse, boxing is being betrayed by its own athletes and their lack of class in certain situations.

Mike Tyson may have shocked us just as much when he bit a chunk out of Evander Holyfield’s ear in 1997, but at least he overstepped the mark in the ring; an outrageous act conducted in the heat of combat.

There is no such excuse to be attached to Chisora and Haye’s pathetic playground rough-and-tumble in front of the world’s media.

Boxing badly needs better role models right now. Even the two most respected and talented fighters at the moment, Floyd Mayweather Junior and Manny Pacquiao, have swapped insults during a prolonged negotiation over the one bout that could put their sport back on the map - but looks no closer to ever happening.

The biggest shame is that, if you look at the action in the ring, Chisora did surprisingly well against the elder of the Klitschko brothers - who are the only remaining global heavyweight drawcards. No one will remember the Zimbabwe-born Brit’s boxing display now.

And the only way the sport can redeem itself is if he, and Haye, are never allowed to fight again.

To be the best you’ve got to beat the best, so the saying goes. But in professional boxing it seems to be the best you’ve only got to avoid the best.

There is no doubt that the Klitschko brothers are two of the biggest attractions in boxing right now. Wladimir holds the IBF and WBO heavyweight crowns, while Vitali is the WBC belt holder.

Each lays claim to being the world’s best heavyweight, though they will never fight each other to answer the question once and for all. That’s understandable, as fighting is obviously a hurting game and the fight would be a sham, because who wants to hurt their own flesh and blood?

But while a sibling battle is unimaginable, a fight with WBA champion, David Haye, was a no-brainer for this year and the only fight for either Klitschko that would validate their position and their legacy.

Unfortunately, it seems that will not happen, as Vitali will instead meet Odlanier Solis in March, and Wladimir will fight Dereck Chisora on April 30th, with one or other of the Klitschko’s now set to fight Tomasz Adamek of Poland in September depending on the outcome of the previous fights.

That leaves Haye out in the cold. And, as he plans to retire from boxing in October, it could mean we never see the explosive Brit tackle the Ukrainians or see the heavyweight titles unified any time soon.

To my mind that would be a massive shame. Let’s face it, boxing has been largely out of the public consciousness for some time now. Yes, we’ve latched on to Manny Pacquiao as a personality, but I still believe that boxing is only as popular to the masses as its heavyweight champion because the notion of a fighter who can conquer all as opposed to all in his weight class is a lot more tangible.

Yet the opportunity to produce a top dog is repeatedly scorned for reasons of money, politics and ego, while ignoring the demands of the public, or at least those who really care about the sport.

For my sins, I still like boxing. I’m old enough to remember the buzz around Ali-Frazier, Ali-Foreman fights. The Bowe, Holyfield, Tyson era. And even during the times when the focus fell away from the heavyweight division, the Hearns, Leonard, Hagler, Duran dynasty filled the gaps with equal aplomb.

Had Twitter been around back then, boxing would surely have been among the top trending topics. It was a conversation you had.

Sadly, you can’t say that about any boxing match in the 21st century. Most people just don’t care, with the result that the sport dies a little more every day.

Haye versus the Klitschko’s would not have been a cure all, but they are fights that people would have wanted to see. Unfortunately, it seems they are off the agenda, which is great for fans of Solis, Chisora, and Adamek, but nobody else.

Pacquiao -- the greatest?

Pacquiao has long been revered for his speed, stamina and range of hits, but under the lights of the MGM Grand Garden Arena, the man from Kibawe entered the pantheon of greats with his WBO-title victory.

The win was impressive for a number of reasons. Firstly, Pacquiao was fighting at welterweight for only the second time in his career. There are always doubts whether the strength to win can be maintained when a fighter moves up the weight divisions, so it was remarkable that a man who has gone from super featherweight to welterweight in two years - and who has now fought at nine different weight divisions having started as a light-flyweight - not only had the harder punches, but absorbed the onslaught of a bigger man so easily.

There have been greats who have been multi-weight champions before too (Sugar Ray Leonard, Oscar De La Hoya, Thomas Hearns and Floyd Mayweather), but Pacquiao now has seven world titles to his name - if IBO and Ring magazine belts are included - a mark that beats the record of six set by De La Hoya.

The 30-year-old, who was born in poverty, has also captured his glory the hard way. The twelfth-round stoppage against Cotto gave the world's best pound-for-pound boxer a career record of 50 wins, three defeats and two draws - 55 fights in total. Compare this number of grueling bouts to Mayweather's 40 undefeated, De La Hoya's 45 career fights, Joe Frazier's 37 bouts, Lennox Lewis's 44 or Leonard's 40.

Not only has Pacquiao fought and beaten the best around - including Marco Antonio Barrera, Erik Morales, Juan Manuel Marquez and ending De La Hoya's career - he has endured a greater number of fights than many of his peers.

Bob Arum, a man who has managed some of the biggest names in boxing over the last forty years told reporters: "I've promoted Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Leonard, Marvin Hagler, and Manny Pacquiao is the best fighter I have ever seen."

A sentiment that Pacquiao's trainer Freddie Roach agreed with: "Compared to all those names, he's as good as any of them. He's the greatest fighter of his era, for sure. 100 percent."

Like Ali, Pacquiao too has a popularity that transcends his sport. His story of rags to riches has captured the imagination of a legion of fans around the world, he was the first Filipino athlete to appear on a postage stamp and was named as one of the world's most influential people of 2009 by Time Magazine. He also has a keen interest in politics, a passion that should see him run successfully for congress in the Philippines in 2010. If the fight with Floyd Mayweather happens it is expected to be the highest grossing of all-time.

The title of "great" is often used cheaply, but with Pacquiao it is richly deserved.

Haye stuck to his game-plan in defeating the one-dimensional Valuev.

David Haye gave away more than seven stone to WBA titleholder Valuev, but though much had been made of the difference in bulk between the two boxers beforehand, when fight-night came, challenger's game-plan ensured he became the first British heavyweight champion since Lennox Lewis with ease.

Comfortable and relaxed from first bell to last, it is even more remarkable and demonstrative of the rising star of Haye that the former cruiserweight champion secured a points win with a right hand that had been broken in the second round.

Valuev's technique was shown to be slow and one-dimensional. Though the 36-year-old had a fearsome reputation, his straight left jab was his only means of meaningful attack, and when Haye showed that pinning him down with such a blunt instrument would be like trapping oil with a colander, Valuev was left stumped and without a plan B.

The 29-year-old Haye was so effective at avoiding the line of attack from the "Beast from the East" that Valuev was left groping the shadows and spaces the Londoner's lean shape had left in the air prior to moving, a recurring event that morphed the aura of Valuev from fearsome colossus to bemused behemoth in a matter of rounds.

Haye stuck to the script - to hit and not be hit - slipping and sliding around the slow-motion Russian before returning fire with well-placed hooks and humdingers. Prior to the fight, much of the talk was whether Haye would be able to go the distance if required, but in truth the Briton finished with energy to spare, saving the most bombastic combination for round 12.

If fights were still fought over 15 rounds, it was hard to see any other outcome than more punishment for the now lumbering giant, Haye's lifetime dream was minutes away from being realized.

Once crowned, Haye admitted the bout had gone as he had hoped: "I had to make him miss so much that he started thinking twice about what he was going to throw. Once that happened it gave me more room to do my thing."

Haye must face America's John Ruiz in the mandatory defense of his newly-acquired crown for his next fight, but Vitali Klitschko (the WBC champion) has already said that, if Haye comes through unscathed, he is keen to fight to unite the belts.

The victory secured in Nuremburg, Germany may ultimately only prove the first step in a career that will see the unification of the belts by a personality that could light up a division bereft of bums-on-seats characters, but if nothing else it proved once again that the little man can triumph over seemingly unbelievable odds with a little bit of thought.

Cris Arreola breaks down in tears after losing to Vitali Klitschko in Los Angeles.

So when we bumped our heads, skinned our knees, or didn‘t win the sack race on school Sport‘s Day, we were expected to grin and bear it without the need for fluids.

We had good role models too, especially in sport, where our heroes were stoic, stiff upper lip, take it on the chin types, who, to quote Kipling, “met Triumph and Disaster, and treated those two impostors the same.”

Well, times have changed and I’ve got kids of my own now. And there’s absolutely no way the “big boys don’t cry” mantra will fly, because everywhere you look someone is wailing.

The latest example came on Saturday night, when Mexican-American heavyweight boxer, Chris Arreola, a 6'3", 251 pound bruiser with a face only a mother could love, (and then only in dim light), bawled his eyes out after failing to relieve Vitali Klitschko of his WBC world title.

It didn’t help that Klitschko is the very definition of stoic so that Arreola looked like a big cry- baby by comparison.

But all the same, watching the self-styled “Nightmare” from East L.A, dripping on the shoulder of his coach after his title-dream was convincingly shattered was uncomfortable to say the least.

But then I started to think about it, and realized that while he might have looked like a bit of a grizzle-guts to Generation-X’ers like me, the 28-year-old was only doing what comes naturally to those born in Generation Y.

Crying in public has become as common among role models as scandals and bling, and sports stars who blubber in front of the cameras are just complying with the social norm.

Look at the more recent examples. Roger Federer loses to Rafael Nadal in this year’s Australian Open final, and weeps like he’s just lost his favorite uncle. Granted, Roger is a serial sobber, but this was his finest hour and he took next to no flak for it.

And so it continued. NBA legend, Michael Jordan, marks his induction to the Basketball Hall of Fame, with a tear-stained acceptance speech.

Habitual retiree, Brett Favre, departs the NFL, for the first time, in a flood of tears. John Terry misses a penalty to lose Chelsea the 2008 UEFA Champions League final, cue the waterworks.

Now obviously, there’ve been notable incidents of crying in sport in the more distant past. 17-year-old Pele howling when he won the FIFA World Cup with Brazil in 1958; Paul Gascoigne welling up when he was yellow carded in the 1990 World Cup semis; Oliver McCall blubbering so hard during a heavyweight bout with Lennox Lewis in 1997 that the referee stopped the fight!

But these were exceptions to the rule. And, in the cases I’ve mentioned, easily explained away by youth or mental instability that became apparent later.

However, in today’s society it seems you don’t need to be young or bonkers to turn on the taps, you just have to be human. And I’m still not sure whether that’s a good thing or bad thing.