Felix Johnson and Aaron Scott are on a talk show after their epic bout ended in a draw.  They seem like pretty good guys, but their girls — holy shit!  They snipe at each other and get bleeped.  It’s funny, but who is bleeping them?  Not HBO broadcasting TFTC.  Not the sports talk show that we are watching live.  But that’s a nitpicky observation.

We next see Aubrey Scott screaming at Aaron’s agent that he better start landing some Schwarzeneggarian parts or else!  And none of that Raw Deal or Red Heat ^[2] shit.  The conversation cuts to Andrea Johnson having exactly the same conversation.  And I mean exactly the same as the perspective changes in mid-sentence, although they do wimp out and pivot on a comma.

Fight promoter Wayne Newton is on the phone — wait, what?  Wayne Newton is a pompous, hammy, big-haired caricature.  Who cast this guy?  Some genius, that’s who!  He is a perfect addition to TFTC — what took so long?  He is enthralled when he watches the brutal Johnson-Scott fight.  The savagery increases when their wives are then separately interviewed.

Both are aggressively trying to land their husband the lead in the new Pulverizer movie.  Andrea calls Aubrey a slut and says if she wants to get her husband a role, it should be in Police Academy 10.  Aubrey suggests Andrea and her husband might be better suited to game shows than the big screen.  The host, who has a future on 1970s AM radio, says, “Be careful what you wish for guys, you just might get it!”  Well they didn’t really wish for anything, bub.  And if they had wished something evil for the other person . . . how would that hurt them?  And is it really so terrible to be in a long-running movie franchise or game show?  Neither one of these guys is going to be Robert De Niro (although both seem to have suffered fewer concussions). ^[1]

Newton has a great idea for the fighters — a Malaysian-Rules Deathmatch!  If that isn’t a real thing, it oughta be.  A lot of talking follows — most of it is from the wives, but isn’t that always the case?  But there is a lot of pretty brutal fighting, too — also from the wives.

Even though it took me 3 weeks and multiple sessions to get through it, I liked it.  The guys were fun even though it was clear that they were portrayed by actual fighters rather than actors.  The wives were so petty and scheming that I think they actually were actresses.

Other Stuff:

• [1] It’s about class, not politics.
• [2] Actually, I have seen neither.  It took me 20 years to watch Eraser and it was pretty good.