sport news Derek Chisora showed heart and spirit but ultimately was mismatched against ... trends now

Derek Chisora had around two million reasons to take a fight with Tyson. In the nine and a half rounds before the referee finally ended this farce, he may have wondered if it was the daftest transaction of a long career.

He will be substantially richer, of course. He will have also garnered respect for that most questionable of talents for absorbing a beating. But this was a nonsense. It was a dangerous nonsense on paper and it was a far more dangerous nonsense in the ring.

The only blessing is Fury knew the scale of the mismatch and seemingly had the decency to leave gears three, four, five and six untouched. Had he been more spitefully inclined, reviews of this engagement for the WBC heavyweight title would be taking a more severe and concerned tone.

Instead, it was simply an affront to competitive senses; a clash between a great fighter and a limited contender of 38 whose main attribute has often taken on the appearance of his worst enemy - his courage. Combined, those ingredients meant a bout that somehow extended to the final nine seconds of the 10th round, even if it was as good as over from the first exchanges of the first session, when we had visual confirmation of the obvious.

That is to say, Chisora would be ballsy. He would be brave. He would swing in Fury’s direction and he would miss. In return, an old swinger with 12 previous defeats, three of which had come in his most recent four bouts, would take as much as Fury could be bothered to give and he kept signing for further deliveries. Good on Chisora for fancying the work, good on any brave man in a hard sport, but it was about as close a match as one between Fury and a heavy bag. Heavy bags were never designed for world title shots.

Again, the relief is Chisora did not get seriously hurt for his £2m payday. In fact, the only time he went down was when he and Fury collapsed in a heap together during the third. But it was a case of domination, a slaying of 1,000 unanswered cuts rather than anything involving an axe.