'Celebrity Boxing' more like 'Has Been Boxing'

What sort of society do we live in? Apparently a pretty screwed-up one. Fox, the network behind such gems as "When Animals Attack," " Who Wants to Marry A Millionaire?" and television's first nationally broadcast gorging contest, has finally scraped the bottom of the barrel with "Celebrity Boxing." But hey, if you can't beat 'em, why not join 'em?\nWashed-up celebrities unite and fight in hopes of recapturing the fame that now eludes them. The first of these innumerable bouts (barring future lawsuits) featured three matches and aired last Wednesday with an encore airing this evening at 8 p.m. \nThe first match of the evening pitted Danny "Boom Boom" Bonaduce against Barry "The Hammer" Williams. Williams is known solely for playing the man-perm sporting Greg Brady on the lame '70s sitcom fixture "The Brady Bunch." Williams couldn't "hammer" a nail, let alone the Partridge Family's redheaded stepchild. I always knew this guy was a wuss -- Fox was just able to prove it. The highlight of this uneventful match up was the fact that Mario "Saved by the Bell" Lopez, a.k.a. A.C. Slater, was Bonaduce's corner man, and sans gheri curl.\nThe second match-up featured Vanilla Ice, a.k.a. Robert "Bi-polar" Van Winkle (I'm sure the mental health community loved that monicker), versus Todd "Diff'rent Strokes" Bridges. Let's just say Ice hit the mat quicker than his album sales slumped. The fight was complete crap with Willis doling out a beatdown that could only be honed in prison (a place he knows all too well). Again, the fight sucked, and the most entertaining element of it was the fighters' posse. Ice had Ultimate Fighting Champion Tank Abbott in his corner, but alas, it wasn't enough.\nThe evening's title card event pitted Tonya Harding against Paula Jones. Long story short, Jones must give blows much better than she takes them. But who's surprised? Tonya "Crowbar" Harding is a fighter of pedigree with a kisser to boot and Paula Jones is a lover not a fighter. I wouldn't even want to go mano a womano with her and I'm a fairly strapping young dude. Had Harding fought her original opponent, Amy "Battafuoco Forever!" Fisher, audiences would have been treated to a much better fight. That's assuming Fisher isn't strapped. \n"Celebrity Boxing" racked up some pretty impressive ratings, scoring in Neilsen's top 20 for the week, and as such, there will be future fights. But who's worthy of suiting up for the cracking of skulls? For my money I'd love to see a fight between Emmanuel "Webster" Lewis and Bridges' troubled TV sibling Gary Coleman featuring guest referee and Howard Stern regular Beetlejuice. \nOther match-ups sure to entertain would be Dustin "Screech" Diamond versus Jaleel "Urkel" White or Mark-Paul "Zack Attack" Gosselaar versus Bonaduce's boy Mario "Albert Clifford" Lopez with guest referee Mr. Belding. These people deserve beatings for all the bad teen television they produced, which we endured at an entirely too impressionable age.\nThe music industry is rife with conflict. Why not prime it for some explosive fisticuffs? Fred "Nookie" Durst and Scott "I'm the second coming of Christ" Stapp could finally stop talking smack and start delivering it. Eminem and Everlast would surely deliver a "heart-stopping" battle. Mostly, I'd just like to see a no-holds-barred, barbed wire cage match pitting the ever-fading Backstreet Boys against the soon-to-be-fading N'Sync. Give 'em bats, broken beer bottles, Molotov cocktails, prison shanks, cattle prods and various other tools of torment and sic them on one another.\nThese match-ups would all be well and good were it not for the fact that this whole enterprise seems rigged. Each winner sported a goldenpalace.com tattoo upon their back, and their foes didn't. Goldenpalace.com is an on-line gambling operation that also sponsors dunderheaded boxer Bernard Hopkins. He sports a larger tattoo during his bouts and constantly sings the praises of his pimps following his innumerable victories. Despite my supposed journalistic integrity, I'll blatantly support goldenpalace.com. They're the absolute bomb track. And remember to be on the lookout for my goldenpalace.com sponsored kickball, tee-ball and lawn darts teams. We're gunnin' for ya!