James DeGale was booed again when introduced to the crowd at the MEN Arena on Saturday and there were few Irish present to blame it on.
It remains to be seen what will happen when he fights next. If it is in London, he may have a majority of fans cheering him loud enough to drown out the booing - as Amir Khan's fans did on Saturday night.
At this stage I would say it is unlikely. If it does not happen, he needs to make this antipathy a strength rather than a weakness and revel in it. At present he says it doesn't bother him. I'm not convinced.
Boxing and professional wrestling have used each other as inspiration for years. Back when Muhammad Ali was Cassius Clay he began copying wrestler Gorgeous George who told him: "A lot of people will pay to see someone shut your mouth."
This is still true but nearly 50 years later it needs a little more creativity.
1996 Olympic Greco Roman gold medallist Kurt Angle came to the WWE at the turn of the Millennium and rather than be portrayed as an Olympic hero fans should like, he was a brash guy who told fans he was an Olympic hero... and that they were privileged to see him.
There are those who think DeGale is not far from this already.
So if you're reading James, here is what I would do:
Come out in a garish gold dressing gown (not too dissimilar from the one worn on debut), possibly with a dollar sign on the back, kissing wads of 50 pound notes.
Maybe throw in a Ravishing Rick Rude moment (ideally with the long mullet) when you get to the ring, grabbing the mic and send a message along the lines of:
"Could all you, ugly, out of shape beer-bellied men in the audience keep the noise down while I show your women what a real man looks like."
Similarly with the complaints about being boring. Embrace it. Pretend to go to throw a jab, then brush your hair and check with your corner that it looks alright (influence: Rick Martel, Shawn Michaels).
Say: "I'm the most boring boxer in Britain and you want to see me beat, but its NEVER going to happen because I'm too good, I've got the Olympic gold medal and the million pound contract to prove it." Throw in a Ric Flair Woooo!
You don't think this would generate interest? I would venture that as well as generate heat from detractors he would also find other fans embracing this behaviour.
Chris Eubank, even more than Prince Naseem, is the British boxer who had the most wrestling-like persona in his career. I certainly went back and forth, liking him to wanting him to get knocked out countless times (admittedly one came when I realised I could almost guarantee doubling my money on betting him winning on points).
At the end of his career he was fully babyface (good guy in wrestling parlan) when he fought Carl Thompson in those bruising encounters. After his last fight against Thompson, he said: "You can't say I never entertained you."
That's all people want.
Lessons in being a good guy
Unlike DeGale at this stage, Amir Khan has a fanbase that outnumbers those who want to see him beaten, though there remain those who long to see him sparked out again like he was by Breidis Prescott.
Telling the press that Marco Antonio Barrera would have been brutally knocked out had the fight gone on another couple of rounds is exactly the sort of comment that lead some to feel this way and may stop him taking the leap to being a stadium filler like Joe Calzaghe or Ricky Hatton.
The way to act after beating a legend is to show humility. Who could not have warmed to Hatton when he took the microphone after beating Kostya Tszyu and paid tribute to him saying: "If I can be half the champion he was, I'll have done alright."
Similarly, whether parochial or not, the suggestions afterwards from Larry Holmes against Muhammad Ali and Manny Pacquiao when he fought Barrera that they took it easy because they did not want to destroy an old legend helped their public persona.
If you want the wrestling example of this, see Shawn Michaels saying sorry before he delivered the Sweet Chin Music to Ric Flair, ending the legend's career at the last Wrestlemania.
My seminar on lessons learned from Wrestlemania's 1-XXV will be at a mediocre university near you in the autumn.
Finally...
Never stay in the Manchester Lodge on Rochdale Road.
I left booking a hotel for myself and Spencer Fearon until the week before last and anywhere I tried to book was unavailable.
That was until I stumbled across the Manchester Lodge which I was delighted to find had a twin for a reasonable price within walking distance of the MEN.
On arriving at the building in question, with walls and windows painted black, to laughs and a warning from the taxi driver not to walk back there at night, I got the same stare from The Spirit as when we arrived at hotels in Las Vegas and Berlin.
The door was opened by an ill-looking lad of dubious profession. Worst suspicions were revealed when he opened the bedroom to reveal a dirty room with a lone, small double bed with pink bedspread, with a fluffy memento against the window to suggest a cuddly environment.
After a brief walk round the place I neglected to view the showers, nor catch Spencer's eye after he did, and took a mental note from the host's warning to use the upstairs toilet because he bleaches that one. He then casually informed us that the place would turn into a very different sort of motel at midday on Sunday. His candour was still surprising, even if the information he passed on was not.
I asked for assurance it wasn't like that on Saturday and he said because of a big party up from London it would not be. I wasn't convinced enough to leave my key in a letterbox as requested when we left for the fight.
To add to the situation while changing to go to the fight in the room, while attempting to avoid touching any surface, we heard voices from females who seemed not a long way into their teens, discussing what drinks they should get from the shop, before deciding on Super Skol.
Then when we got to the boxing every journalist I spoke to wanted to complain about the hell-hole he was staying in!
We discussed our options after the fight. Stay there with a set of drawers against the door, sleeping on either side of the bed with lightstand in hand and one eye open....or not.
We picked up the non valuables left in the room, in an operation of similar speed to Omar ransacking a crack den in The Wire before finding our way to Amir Khan's after-party where, with further insult, we found the gorgeous-smelling curry already had been taken care of.
Thankfully Spencer's friend Mark could drive us home a few hours later in his luxurious Lexus where finally the humour in the situation could be fully embraced.