Just before that main event, a former 160-pounds world champion from Ireland, held court with a small clutch of reporters in one of the ancient venue’s many long corridors.

Andy Lee had not been at his best on the undercard that night, clearly outpointing KeAndrae Leatherwood over eight uneventful rounds, but the fight had served a purpose; shake off the ring rust from 15 months out and get his name back in the mix for a shot at Triple-G.

But as he spoke that night, a wry smile broke across his face. “Baby No. 1 is on the way,” he told us. “It's due in June so I’ll be tied up for a bit, then back in the gym come September, ready to fight before the end of the year.”

Except Lee would never fight again. Those eight rounds, in his 39th fight, would prove to be the final act of his world-title winning career. Eventually he would return to boxing but from the other side of the ropes as an analyst and pundit for boxing’s then-fledgling broadcaster DAZN.

But in 2019 he returned to the gym full time, but not as a fighter.

Instead, he decided to train and guide 20-year-old Paddy Donovan, who Lee had known for a decade, towards a world title. During an interview that June, Lee had told me Donovan’s quality—the full package of blonde hair, good looks and “even a great name”—drew him back into the sport he had seemingly retired from.

Donovan made his debut in October 2019, only two and a half years on from Lee-Leatherwood, and won in just 76 seconds. It was Lee’s first time in the corner and the ball was rolling.

On Saturday night against the dramatic backdrops of the Pyramids, exactly 2,416 days on from that corner debut, Lee became world champion trainer for the first time. It was not Donovan as he might have expected, although that will inevitably follow, but instead Hamzah Sheeraz.

The 27-year-old had turned to Lee after his first world title fight, against Carlos Adames in February last year, went sideways. Since their link-up, Sheeraz has dismantled Edgar Berlanga in five and then swept aside the overmatched Alem Begic in just two to claim the WBO super middleweight title. In a moment of serendipity, it was the very same sanctioning body belt, with its maroon strap, that Lee had once held at middleweight.

Even before his first world champion was crowned, Lee had emerged as perhaps the most revered trainer in world boxing. A quiet, unassuming figure with little regard for interviews or noise, he has let his fighters do the talking.

Last year was not a great one for the stable, with Donovan twice beaten by Lewis Crocker and Joseph Parker stopped by Fabio Wardley. The pressure on Sheeraz, an overwhelming favorite against Begic, and therefore his trainer, was significant.

The Ilford man did his job in style and a beaming Lee could not have looked more proud as his fighter produced a classy post-fight interview, where he refused to call out Canelo and even paid tribute to his former coach, the LA-based Ricky Funez, whom he left for the Irishman last year.

There were echoes of Lee’s journey here, too. Of course the southpaw from Limerick had spent many years in America under the tutelage of Emanuel Steward in the Kronk. He tried and failed to win a world title during that time but it was not until he headed back across the Atlantic and linked up with Adam Booth that he did so.

Even so, you could say that Lee became Steward’s final world champion when he dramatically stopped Matvey Korobov in Vegas to claim the WBO middleweight title in December 2014. That victory came a little over two years after Steward’s death but the great trainer’s wife was in attendance that night at the Cosmopolitan when Lee was king of the world.

But 12 years later, it would be Lee in the corner as the belts were handed out. And, with one final left hook to Begic's liver, it was decided that Sheeraz would be his first world champion.

In one final strange twist of fate, who should be sitting ringside applauding the destruction before him? Gennady Golovkin. It’s a funny old sport.

There were many of us who gave Rico Verhoeven absolutely no chance against Oleksandr Usyk this past weekend – but we should have known better.

With the benefit of hindsight, the parallels between this fight and the one between Tyson Fury and Francis Ngannou in October 2023 were there for all to see, and look what happened there.

Fury was fortunate to claim a split decision that night after climbing off the canvas in the third round as the highly motivated Ngannou stunned everyone with his performance. Verhoeven was not afforded the chance to hear the judges scorecards but they may well have been much the same for him, too.

But the Dutchman should also beware of the next chapter in Ngannou’s story.

Within five months of that effort against Fury, he was given the chance to face another of the division’s leading lights in Anthony Joshua. This time however, the Brit was well aware of the threat and Ngannou’s element of surprise had disappeared completely. Joshua walked him down and knocked him out.

Now Verhoeven will have the same problem; nobody will take him lightly ever again and his next opponent will not be arriving for a novelty fight but to prove a point.