Joe Louis, the archetypal sporting hero whose name is given to this cavernous indoor arena, would surely have shaken his head in disbelief at the shoddy, disgraceful featherweight title unification match between Naseem Hamed and his Mexican opponent Cesar Soto.
The fight, in which Hamed added Soto's WBC belt to the World Boxing Organisation version of the title he was defending for a 13th time, had all the appeal of a barney between two boozed-up no-brains in a pub car-park.
For six rounds there was little or no attempt at boxing other than haymaking hooks from Soto, which achieved a modicum of success only because Hamed chose to leave his gloves dangling contemptuously by his side, leaving his chin as an open and inviting target.
Instead the 12,500 crowd and those who were supposedly watching on television in more than 120 countries were forced to witness a crude catalogue of fouls.
Head-butting, mauls, arm and head locks, even a judo-style body-slam by Hamed which sent Soto over his shoulder before crashing to the canvas; they were all there, and what seemed at first vaguely amusing in a handbags-at-dawn kind of way soon became nothing short of pathetic.
The deduction of two points from Hamed as the red haze came down left him perilously close to disqualification.
Soto was also docked a point but Hamed at last began to throw enough quality punches in the second half of the fight to take a clear points win.
The referee Dale Grable's abject performance was rightly criticised but the feeble attempts of both fighters to justify this shambles do not merit repetition except when Hamed said he would happily give Soto a rematch.
Lou DiBella, the head of boxing on the American cable network HBO, replied loudly: "No way. If you want that, you find yourself another TV company." Hamed reportedly pocketed in the region of £5m for the fight but the public was seriously short-changed.
The hype suggests Hamed can become one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the world but actions speak louder than words and for his last three fights he has won in an unsatisfactory manner.
Central council delegates at Saturday's meeting of the IABA had to face up to the embarrassing possibility of not being represented in the ring at next year's Sydney Olympics. Senior officials expressed concern with the amount of money and energy that has already gone into offording their boxers opportunities to clinch Olympic places at various qualifying tournaments around Europe with no success.
"No other association has handed out so much money or sent so many boxers around Europe in order to win places at the Olympics as we have," said president Brendain O'Connaire.
An original squad of 12 boxers selected to compete at qualifiers in Istanbul next month has been reduced to three, Liam Cunningham, Bernard Dunne and John Kinsella.
Five champions have been named for the fifth series of qualifiers in Romania next month. They are lightfly, James Rooney (Holy Family); bantam, Damien McKenna (HF Drogheda); light, Aidh Carlyle (Sacred Heart); welter, Niall Gough (St Paul's Waterford); middle, Conal Carmichael ( Holy Trinity).
Meanwhile he has been named at lightwelter along with two others, Tallaght's Terry Carlyle and John Duddy of Ring Derry for European qualifiers also in Romania at the same tournament.
The first home match, since 1984, against Hungary was confirmed for April 14th.
