The sorry state of heavyweight boxing in the United States was evident in last week’s encounter between Chris Arreola and Bermane Stiverne for the vacant WBC title.

Rather than take place at a premier boxing venue such as the MGM Grand or Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, or Madison Square Garden in New York, this heavyweight title clash was held at the Galen Centre in downtown Los Angeles — a sports arena owned by the University of Southern California.

Gone are the days when a heavyweight title clash in the former home of heavyweight boxing was a major sporting event, watched by millions and held at major venues and arenas.

In fact, it’s a fair bet that most sports fans in the US — never mind around the world — have never heard of Bermane Stiverne.

Yet after stopping Chris Arreola in the sixth round of a truly pulsating contest, the Haitian-born Canadian national is the current owner of a title vacated by Vitali Klitschko at the end of last year, upon the Ukrainian’s retirement from the ring and entry into politics in his country of origin.

Perhaps the less said about that, though, the better.

The most significant aspect of Stiverne’s hard-fought victory over Arreola, whom he’s now met and defeated twice, is the fact that it heralds the return of Don King to prominence.

King, Stiverne’s promoter, is easily the most controversial character in the history of the sport, a man whose mantra of “only in America” is hardly a ringing endorsement of the American dream.

Starting out as a low-level street hustler in his home town of Cleveland, Ohio, he served four years in prison for manslaughter after beating a man to death over an unpaid debt. Of his time in prison, King later boasted: “I didn’t serve time. Time served me.”

His claim that he used his time inside to dedicate himself to reading the classics is backed up by an extraordinary ability to quote eve

ryone from Shakespeare to Mark Twain to Machiavelli in the same interview.

He is the archetypal hustler, who by dint of a sharp instinct for opportunity and the willingness to take risks managed to ride to the very top of the sport when he pulled off the Rumble In The Jungle in 1974 in Zaire.

The classic heavyweight encounter between Muhammed Ali and George Foreman was matched in the ring by the promotional genius of Don King in putting the fight together, utilising other people’s money to do so.

He also promoted the Thrilla In Manila in 1975, the third instalment in the trilogy of fights between Ali and Joe Frazier, considered by many to be the greatest heavyweight contest of all time.

At one time, Don King controlled heavyweight boxing to such an extent he made and unmade careers at his pleasure.

The list of heavyweights who joined his stable, only to have cause to regret it, reads like a who’s who of the sport. Former champion Tim Witherspoon, who sued King in the early ’90s and ended up receiving an out of court settlement of $1 million said of the promoter: “What Don King does is black-on-black crime.”

Belinda Ali, one of Muhammed’s ex wives, came up with a more powerful summation of his character when she said: “Don King talks black, lives white and thinks green.”

King, though, rather than appalled or perturbed by the reputation he’s gained for sharp practice when it came to business has clearly always revelled in it, viewing himself as something of a role model for black people in the US. “Martin Luther King took us to the mountain top,” he once said. “I want to take us to the bank.”

He briefly enjoyed a promotional partnership with British promoter Frank Warren in the late ’90s. It ended in a lawsuit which King subsequently won. There are not many who can claim to have successfully defeated Warren in the courts.

With the emergence of Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions to a position of dominance after it was established in 2002, many felt that the sport had entered a new era, spelling the end of figures such as Don King.

They spoke too soon. King’s back, louder and brasher than he ever was, sporting the wide grin and upright hair he made his own.

Here we go again.