The left hand crashed square into Lucien Bute’s face, snapping his head back at the neck, but it was the preceding right, thrown from Carl Froch’s hip, which sent the most disturbing shudder through the young Canadian’s body.

The look on Andy Lee’s face when the referee called a halt to his bout with Ferenc Hafner, after just 1 minute and 19 seconds of round two, said it all about the man’s current level of ambition.