WLADIMIR KLITSCHKO has been fighting as a professional since 1996. In the ensuing 19 years since he has amassed a record of 64 wins from 67 fights with just three losses. Of those 64 victories 53 have been by KO. He has not been defeated in 11 years and is the reigning WBA, IBF and WBO heavyweight champion. He also happens to speak four languages and holds a PhD in sports science.

At age 39 the 6'6" Ukrainian is the epitome of athletic, sporting and cultural achievement. He has been a fantastic and exemplary ambassador of heavyweight boxing during a period of decline in the division’s fortunes. This decline is measured not just in the lack of quality in the ring, but the lack of class outside it as well.

The latter was in evidence at this week’s press conference in London to promote Klitschko’s upcoming defence against Britain’s Tyson Fury, which was scheduled to take place on October 24 in Dusseldorf but faces a short postponement due to Klitschko suffering a calf injury in training.

Fury turned up at the press conference dressed as Batman, bursting into the packed venue and doing a quick lap of honour round the room before taking his seat, much to everybody’s bemusement. Of those present some found it hilarious, others embarrassing, while for most it was a combination of the two.

Such antics could perhaps be justified as a gimmick to raise the fight’s profile — sell more tickets and pay-per-view subscriptions. Ali, after all, used to employ all manner of gimmicks to sell his fights, as have many other fighters.

However it was afterwards, when Fury had replaced his Batman outfit with the traditional shirt and tie, that the 6'6" challenger’s rhetoric plumbed the depths of thuggery and malice.

Tyson Fury is unique in that he is controversial, entertaining, funny and offensive in equal part. On any given day, at any given press conference, you don’t know what you are going to get with him. A scion of the travelling community, he brings to the fight game all the pride and toughness associated with its culture. Sadly, though, he also serves up a truckload of boorishness and disrespect.

It was the latter that came to the fore at this press conference, leaning across the table towards Klitschko and pledging to hurt, destroy and leave him covered in blood. It was unsavoury and it was ugly, incompatible with the sport of boxing as the sweet science and fuel for those who consider it nothing more than glorified streetfighting.

Worse was the fact the room was filled with Fury friends and supporters, who were egging him on to the point where it seemed more like a pub about to kick off than the press conference for a world heavyweight title fight.

Boxing doesn’t need this kind of menace. The only thing keeping it out of the reaches of the gutter is respect for those who risk their lives and health every time they step into the ring. Wladimir Klitschko has done so 67 times over 19 years and remains a gentleman and a champion who oozes dignity. He must have wondered what crime he had committed to find himself in that room.

Not only that, he and the international audience watching these scenes must by now have formed an opinion of British heavyweight boxers that sits somewhere between low and lower. The younger of the famed Klitschko brothers had already experienced David Haye’s antics, involving an offensive T-shirt carrying the image of the severed heads of both brothers prior to their 2011 clash, followed by Dereck Chisora, who spat a mouthful of water into Wladimir’s face before facing his brother Vitali in 2012.

Fury undoubtedly can fight. The undefeated 27-year-old is big, strong and athletic and mobile for his size. In his uncle, Peter Fury, he has an intelligent and knowledgeable trainer who will make sure he arrives in superb condition on October 24. However if he believes that the antics he unveiled this week will rattle the reigning champion he is taking a massive gamble.

Wladimir Klitschko would not have taken this defence unless he and his team were confident. In fact, given Fury’s past tendency to fight on his emotions rather than intelligence, it is a fair bet that the Ukrainian believes that this defence will be far from his most challenging or difficult.

If a pumped-up cruiserweight like Steve Cunningham can put the giant Mancunian on the canvas, the massive world champion can go one better and make sure he stays there.

Marvin HagLer and Sugar Ray Leonard

Marvellous Marvin Hagler and Sugar Ray Leonard were involved in some of the classic fights boxing has seen. They were contemporaries during the halcyon days of the middleweight division, along with Tommy Hearns and Roberto Duran. The four of them together made up a true golden age in the sport.

When they finally met in the ring in 1987 they served up an epic encounter. It was Hagler the bull versus Leonard the matador, producing a contrast of styles, philosophy and temperament that made for more excitement in one fight than 20 other fights combined.

In the end Leonard took the split decision in a result that has remained a popular and regular subject of dispute in bars, gyms, barbershops — anywhere it comes up between fans, writers and fighters past and present.

Hagler never laced up the gloves again afterwards, he was so disgusted and disillusioned, convinced he’d been robbed, as he had many times before in a career that had been the very definition of tenacity and determination. He left the United States for Italy and retired from view, turning his back on a sport that in his eyes had turned its back on him.

Leonard, on the other hand, fought on, until his career finally and thankfully sputtered out in 1997 with a defeat to Hector Camacho.

Given their standing as two genuine ring legends, and given the bitterness following the conclusion of their one and only fight against each other, it was heart-warming to see them hug when they came upon one another at the Nevada Boxing Hall of Fame in August, where Hagler was inducted, smiling and chatting as two ageing warriors with no more battles to fight should.

It will likely be a long time before we ever see such legends in a ring again. Their 1987 fight still produces goose bumps when you watch it, with the hug that should have followed it delayed all these years. Boxing is at its best in such moments, absent of either bitterness or enmity and instead a celebration of courage and fusion of the human spirit.