AS with Haye-Harrison, there was outrage. The fight had gone the way plenty of sensible observers expected it to go, and to some this was clearly unacceptable.

No matter that on Saturday night in Hamburg, David Haye was facing comfortably one of the best two heavyweights of his generation.

No matter that Wladimir Klitschko has looked pretty near invincible for the past six years now, brilliantly using his superior reach to create an impregnable defence and outbox all-comers.

To say that Haye did well on Saturday, as others have tried to suggest, might be stretching the point a bit. He didn’t, he lost.

But we marvel at those who claimed it was the most disgraceful performance since, well since Audley Harrison.

In both cases, the defeated fighter lost because their own ability was never sufficient to match that of their opponent.

There should be no surprises there, and it is naïve to blame them for claiming before the fight that they would emerge victorious.

Which boxer would seriously go into the ring admitting his chances of winning were slim?

Since Saturday, Haye has been labelled as a cruiserweight, no more and no less. Never up to it at heavyweight, apparently, rather overlooking the fact that he remains comfortably the best heavyweight in the world outside of the Klitschko brothers.

But the gulf between the Klitschkos and the rest remains huge, and perhaps now we can finally acknowledge that is because they might actually be pretty good.

The excuses did Haye no favours.

A broken toe will not have helped but, injury or no injury, he would not have won on Saturday night.

The glorious victory most were hoping for did not happen, but there is no reason for outrage.

Like that ever growing list of tennis players who crush Andy Murray’s dreams four times a year, Klitschko was just too good.