Ratings were apparently low even though it was a great show. The dumb bastard was so clever. He realized that the best way to start a season would be with talk. And nobody would talk about a fight in which everything worked out okay. We'd watch it, go to bed and say, "Ahh, once again, order is restored," and forget about the whole thing. Who knows if we'd tune in next year. But now the buzz is out, thousands of people are blogging and chatting and some are even writing articles about the state of the sport of boxing and the questionable ethics behind reality TV and the misnomer "reality", and the godfather of it all, Mark Burnett, gets mentioned over and over, and so do Manfretto and Snakeguy, and the next thing you know a marketing campaign is born and a show whose legs were weak has attracted millions of curious rubberneckers.

Sorry, but Entertainment today is so much more sophisticated than the old days of boxing payoffs. That's chump change compared to what a network pulls in on programs like this. And the stakes are higher as well. You can bet that even though it all sits behind the guise of good, family entertainment, it's as dirty and sinister as ever. No judge can be bought at that level--except by the hand that feeds him.