Two different kinds of heavyweight action...

Day off today, so Laurene and I spent the better part of the afternoon watching Food Network's Iron Chef America special. I've always been a big Iron Chef fan. There's just something innately interesting to me about watching two chefs trying to make the most elaborate dishes they can in less then an hour using an ingredient that they've never seen before. I've been a rabid IC fan for about four years now, and I was interested to see how the Food Network's American version would compare to the original. (We won't speak of the campy attempt by UPN to replicate the show with Bill Shatner.)

Not surprisingly, the American version hangs pretty close to the Japanese original. This may be because Food Network doesn't want to offend the fans of its cash cow(many ads ran during the five hours worth of shows for various IC tie-in products), but it also may be that the Food Network also wanted to pay tribute to a ratings mainstay.

One of the more entertaining things about the original IC was Chairman Kaga, the flamboyant "millionaire cuisine afficionado who built Kitchen Stadium". As played by Japanese actor Takeshi Kaga, the Chairman is a flamboyant, over the top guy who reeeeeeally likes food. (Kaga got his start in the theater, where according to his IMDb bio, he was the first Japanese to play Tony in West Side Story, Jesus in Superstar, and Jean Valjean in Les Miz). Kaga set the tone for the show by introducing the participants and announcing the ingredient, then starting things with a hearty shout of "Allez Cuisine!". His American equivalent, simply called the Chairman, is played by martial artist and B-movie hero Mark Dacascos. Dacascos introduces himself as the nephew of Chairman Kaga, and tells us that his uncle now considers the US worthy of our own Iron Chef. Now, I'm a big Dacascos fan, but he's not nearly as good as Kaga.

Alton Brown, the host of FN's Good Eats is the host of the show, and seems to be playing the roles of both Fukui-san and Hattori-san, as there is no second chair commentator. He does a good job of it, conveying a general sense of what's going on and also showing off some of his own food knowledge. There's a roving reporter, whose name I have forgotten, but unlike Shinichiro Ohta, he does not frantically interrupt Brown, but rather calmly waits for his chance to interject. It's IC, but it's not.

The American Iron Chefs are Wolfgang Puck, Mario Batali, and IC veteran Bobby Flay, who had two contentious battles with Iron Chef Japanese Masaharu Morimoto on the original IC. Flay went one and one with Morimoto, but twice managed to offend the Japanese with his, well, Americanness. The Japanese Iron Chefs are Iron Chef French Hiroyuki Sakai and Iron Chef Japanese Morimoto. The matches are as follows.

Flay vs. Sakai, with the secret ingredient being Trout. Flay wins in a decision that's not as close as the tasting segment would indicate.

Morimoto vs. Batali, with the ingredient being Spiny Lobster. Batali wins, and I'm sensing a trend here. Morimoto's dishes are the same kind of material that he did on IC, but the American judges seem to be having a hard time with it. This will become a bigger factor in the next match,

Morimoto vs. Puck, with the ingredient being various kinds of Eggs. This includes ostrich eggs, which are very large, very gooey, and apparently, a very good ingredient for ice cream. Puck wins, which should be obvious from the fact that Vincent "Big Pussy" Pastore doesn't seem to want to like any of Morimoto's dishes, save for a Kobe Beef Sukiyaki served at the table.

The final match is a Tag Team battle, with the interesting twist of teaming Flay and Morimoto vs. Sakai and Batali. The ingredients are about a half dozen different kinds of fish, including Sea Urchins and Langostines. The whole match, Brown seems to be concerned about Flay and Morimoto working together, but they obviously don't have any problems, as they beat Sakai and Batali fairly easily.

Overall, the American IC is a lot of fun, though not as much fun as the Japanese version, and here's hoping Food Network decides to start doing it on a regular basis.

I also finally got around to watching the Klitschko-Sanders fight from Saturday night. A few weeks back, I complained here about the alphabet soup nature of modern boxing, and this fight was certainly no exception. This fight is for the WBO championship, and is the last of four heavyweight fights in three weeks for belts. The difference here is that the winner of this fight could probably lay the most legitimate claim for heavyweight contender of the world. Let's look at the other contenders real quick.

Lamon Brewster: Beat Wlad Klitschko on 4/10 on HBO to vault into contention. Took advantage of Klitschko's tiredness to beat him, and now Wlad's camp is suggesting that their cutman accidentally sabotaged the match.(Larry Merchant more or less disputed this idea short of actual corroboration.) Not really a contender. Holds the WBO belt.

John Ruiz: WBA champ. Terrible fighter. Shaddax has a apt description of Ruiz's style in his post of a week ago regarding the Ruiz/Oquendo fight. Let's just say the word cheater is used a lot.

Chris Byrd: IBF champ, fought to a draw with Andrew (Low Blow) Golota on the same card with Ruiz last Saturday. Made the rounds of both ESPN's Friday Night Fights and the HBO broadcast, basically campaigning for a shot at the winner of Klitschko/Sanders. Probably the best of the three contenders.

Klitschko-Sanders was not a great fight by any stretch of the imagination, but Vitali Klitschko is definitely the heavyweight champion of the world going forward. Klitschko pretty much dominated the fight from the second round on, after Sanders came out swinging in the first. By the fourth round, Sanders was basically walking around the ring taking punches, trying to get one big punch in. In the seventh, Sanders attempted a comeback, but it was cut short in the eighth, as Vitali pounded him up and down until the ref stopped the bout.

What the division really needs is a new Mike Tyson or Ali, someone who will catch the collective imagination of boxing fans and carry the sport to the next level. Right now, that's a long way from happening.