The one good thing about Saturday night’s ruckus is that it finally laid that glib nonsense to rest

I do envy those Brits with the moral backbone to be embarrassed by the Buffoonics in Munich. All week we have heard from those furiously mortified by the behaviour of Dereck Chisora and David Haye, whereas I must admit the caper has afforded me much mirth, from Desperados – the bottle of tequila-flavoured beer David Haye was clutching – to the BBC’s failure to pixelate the registration number of the white Range Rover in his drive.

I laughed at my colleague Richard Williams’s deliciously mild observation that no one was likely to declare that Chisora or Haye’s “example of love, character and dignity makes us want to be better”, as David Beckham did at Muhammad Ali’s birthday party the night after the ruckus. I laughed at the similar unlikelihood of anyone suggesting the second act of Haye’s life will feature a run for political office, as Vitali Klitschko’s has.

I mostly laughed at the smalltimery of big David Haye. Standing with his beer-o-pop at the back of the press conference, he had the look of countless blokes up and down Britain at about the same time on a Saturday night out, who suddenly half-decide to turn the last drink into something that will be half-regretted in the morning. It’s an escalation best summed up in Paul Calf’s exuberant introduction to himself. “My name’s Paul Calf, support Man City. Like drinking, like a laugh – you know, bit of a debate, argument, scrap, fight, punch-up, break some bloke’s nose … I like life!”

Alas, then, my embarrassment has been in nonexistent supply. Perhaps it would have helped if there’d been some marginally more sympathetic victims in the fracas. My tears failed to liquefy at the possibility of damage to promoters’ suits, and I’m afraid to confess that minor injuries to boxing trainers and entourage members are fairly far down my list of give-a-tosses.

Naturally, everyone involved, and plenty of those observing, have done their swift best to suggest that the most maligned victim in all of this is boxing, particularly British boxing, who you’d think was some spotless old dear who’d had her dignity impugned. “Worst of all,” ran Chisora’s statement, was that he had let “the sport I love down”. Haye’s screed alluded to his part in something which “threatened to damage the reputation of the sport we both love”. The vast majority of professional commentators concurred, and the suspicion when all parties reach such hasty agreement is that a position convenient to all has been found.

Yet isn’t there a whiff of something rather unspeakable in the synthetic howls of disgust that have greeted the matter? I know we all have to insist that boxing is the sweet science and the sporting equivalent of opera, like we’re all watching it in smoking jackets with tears of moved awe streaming down our faces, and that failure to appreciate it in the correct way is a faux pas as ghastly as not understanding jazz or mispronouncing Kierkegaard. But, if I might stray into technicalese, what a load of cobblers. I mostly like watching boxing; I probably shouldn’t; I’m afraid I’m going to carry on doing it. Ali’s observation that the sport is a lot of white men watching two black men beat each other up still holds much dispiriting truth today, and those pressing their hankies to their noses about “savagery” and “uncivilised” behaviour in Munich seem – to my untrained eyes at least – to be dancing dangerously close to a choice of words that might be described as unfortunate.

But of course, closely allied to such questionable sentiments is that oddly enduring fairytale that casts boxing as social panacea. For decades now, misty-eyed chaps have claimed that channelling young men’s energy into gym-tutored fighting is the way to stop them descending into acts of mindless violence on the streets (it’s certainly infinitely cheaper than spending any money on the things that actually cause social breakdown).

So you might say that the one good thing about Saturday night’s ruckus – apart from the merriment it has given those of us too unrefined to take it very seriously – is that it finally laid that glib nonsense to rest. It belongs in another time. After all, a man who has benefited from the best boxing training in the land appeared to be just as capable of making idiotic threats to shoot someone as all those gang members and bragging teens who have tragically not been given the opportunity of being saved by the fight game.

Then again, hasn’t this preposterous affectation about boxing been already laid to rest countless times, certainly on each occasion an extremely rich and famous boxer is involved in a domestic violence case or worse? Even The Wire – perennial star of Christian Lander’s wickedly sharp blog Stuff White People Like – made miserable fun of boxing’s curative potential.

Still, I’ve no doubt that the British boxing authorities will act in a way that somehow rehoists the figleaf, and allows some people to think that it’s really all about code and dignity and personal discipline.

But if you’ve got half a brain, you need only look at the grotesques that have leeched off the spectacle since time immemorial to know that it’s all of a piece. The so-called nobility is inextricably bound up with the filth, and you might as well make your peace with it.

Dereck Chisora-David Haye caper ends all notions of boxing’s dignity | Marina Hyde