In awkward situations, boxing doesn’t so much ignore the elephant in the room as it does slay the animal brutally. On November 15, a 58-year-old Mike Tyson will step into the ring with a decidedly not 58-year-old Jake Paul. From a human standpoint, age is really all that matters here. Tyson had no place in professional boxing in 2005; you would think most people would agree that the past 19 years have merely emphasized that truth, and that they would not get hoodwinked by the fight commercials featuring clips of Tyson vaporizing Michael Spinks in – checks notes – 1988! Alas, the prospect of violence breeds stupidity. I will tune in for the Katie Taylor-Amanda Serrano co-main and then leave.

On November 9, boxing was handed an excuse to shred another topic that needed to be addressed: Gustavo Lemos was allowed to get in the ring with Keyshawn Davis after missing weight by 6lbs. Davis still managed to thrash Lemos with a Crawfordian viciousness, and lo and behold the takeaway, formed on a knockout-induced high, is that Keyshawn is the real deal. Is he ready for Gervonta?

Really, the headline should have been that boxers can blow weight by a mile and still wind up in the ring. Some of those who work in the sport will tell you, with a straight face, that Davis-Lemos was a lightweight bout. Lemos was closer to being a super middleweight than a lightweight when he was fighting.

He shouldn’t have been allowed in there. Before Davis’ brutal counters took his legs, Lemos spent the fight throwing hooks with his full body. Had one of those hooks landed flush and knocked Davis out, justifying the event would be near-impossible to everyone. Boxing is lucky that Davis dissected Lemos, but by no means does it deserve credit. 

Fights like this don’t always break the fortunate way. Ryan Garcia pummeled Devin Haney. And further back, a blown-up Jose Luis Castillo erased Diego Corrales’ consciousness. 

In each case, the viscerality of the fight took over the discourse. Top Rank released the full video of Corrales-Castillo II in September; after Castillo landed the fateful left hook, the . After the fight, the only reference to the victor missing weight included in the video was indirect, with one of the broadcasters saying he would not regain the title. Castillo’s elated smile suggests he didn’t care about that too much. 

Ahead of his scheduled trilogy bout with Corrales, Castillo missed weight again. This time a furious Corrales called off the fight. 

He should have done it the first time Castillo missed weight, but it’s not a boxer’s nature to just call off a fight, just as it evidently isn’t in Tyson’s to not fight a man 30 years younger than him. Boxers are in shape and bloodthirsty after a grueling training camp. They still think they can win, and they don’t want to disappoint fans or tank their reputation by canceling a fight. Imagine if Haney, still a huge favorite before the fight with Garcia, had called the bout off when Garcia came in overweight.

The simplest thing to do is proceed with the fight as planned, and to take the potential beating that comes with it.

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Boxers’ extraordinary bravery obligates the sport to implement safeguards that protect the fighters from themselves. A corner throws in the towel during a bloody mismatch; the referee steps in despite the broken fighter’s insistence that they can continue. These are necessary measures that have likely prevented deaths, though from the bubbling venom viewers still have for Richard Steele ensuring a Meldrick Taylor wouldn’t take another punch from Julio Cesar Chavez in their first fight, you wouldn’t know it. 

The point is that fighters are not normal human beings, mentally or physically. Most have impenetrable levels of pain tolerance. So common sense dictates that they simply cannot be allowed to dictate all the terms of a fight. 

Why boxing does not extend that principle to the peripheral parts of the sport, like making weight, is all too obvious – there is money to be made. 

In an ideal world, the rule should be very simple: miss weight, and the fight’s off. Easy. Both fighters have agreed to a weight limit. Violate it and you lose the right to compete. The opponent is protected from fighting an overweight boxer, and from themselves.

Davis outclassing Lemos so thoroughly proves nothing different. The skill gap between certain fighters is always going to be vast. As a general rule, missing weight should lead to a cancellation. Fix that, and make fighters weigh in on their walk to the ring instead of the day before, and they might actually start competing in their weight class that corresponds with their healthy weight rather than 15lbs lower.

But everyone would be disappointed at the cancellations, and what if the fighter didn’t miss weight by much? Those charged with a DUI for a 0.09 per cent blood-alcohol content are disappointed too. A limit is a limit.

This sport will remember Davis’ demolition of Lemos as the fight in which Davis truly announced his enticing potential. Perhaps we should really think of it as boxing being fortunate to avoid yet another scandal. In this sport, though, even scandals are often forgotten if they occur in a sufficiently blurry whirl of violence.