There is an uneasy solemnity that drapes, inky black, on those standing beside a beaten champion. Neon lights trace across drunken faces outside the ropes, microphones are readied and cornermen wipe sweat from opponent’s shoulders and blood from brows. Rivals embrace. Affirming their mutual respect. The imposters of triumph and disaster are met. Doctrine is observed. Doctors assured.

It is a peculiar, haunting void. A type of professional grieving commences. Sermons are offered. The flush of adrenalin weakens. Reality stirs. Those closest search for reason and for words of reassurance. Rendered motionless. Speechless too, but for familiar cliche. Startled by their own dependency, they know not where to be, where to look or what to do. The former champion still prowls, still sweats, still fighting the onrushing truth. Into the chaos beyond defeat, into the collapse of the exit plan, the lost income and stark realisation of a peak now passed, many more than just the deposed champion are plunged.

A defeat can often be a type of reckoning. Always unwelcome, it searches for the hidden truths. The miles not run, the sessions missed or, as Josh Warrington discovered on Saturday night, the irreversible signs of age. Perhaps noted in the convenience of silence or with a momentary locking of eyes, but dismissed or disguised in the privacy of training nevertheless.

As the boxing truism insists; fighters are the first to know but the last to say.

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