This is something that has been worming its way through my brain space for a few years now, but I guess it's time to put it down in this thread and see what you all think.
Bobby Flay is Food Network's John Cena.
You may be asking yourself why is Man God talking about Food Network again, or why this is interesting in any possible way and I'll explain it to you as best I can.
Bobby Flay is instantly unlikable despite having all of the traits of a likable food personality, good looks, good voice, great skills at messaging a product that can be quite technical at times. But due to being over exposed, oozing big city charm, and being pushed down people's throats for nearly 20 years. Now without looking it up I'd wager he's been the star of 20 or so shows on the network, a great deal of which are perfectly acceptable modern Southwestern fusion straight cooking shows. Now to further this comparison his very first show was a two chef bbq show that portrayed him as a city slicker who used a gas grill and was the butt of the amiable but less talented southern chef and his charcoal rig. But his bread and butter since appearing on the original Iron Chef show was competition format shows.
The first of these was actually quite the big deal where he traveled over to Japan and...experienced a bunch of odd technical glitches on the way to his eventual loss. This is kinda like the booking for the worst year of John Cena's life in that he comes across as a bit of a whiner, though the better wrestling comparison is early heel Bret Hart just returning from his hiatus after WM XII. He does get his heat back by winning the return match in NYC a year later, and someone at the Food Network came up with an idea. Well, two ideas, but one of them isn't all that important to this discussion (Iron Chef America, which Bobby Flay starred on for the early seasons, was largely played straight with none of the drama of the Japanese version) the idea that they came up with was this; Let's cast Bobby Flay as a well meaning but cocky heel cooking champion who challenges local specialists at their own best dish, come into their establishment under false pretenses and have a cooking competition. Judged by a panel of three local judges and despite work shopping the dish beforehand with two likable female assistants Bobby Flay would lose a bit more than he won on these events because the home cooking was just too strong to overcome. Most weeks were basically Money in the Bank 2011 to bring it into context.
Now we come to the real meat of this discussion, that show was Throwdown with Bobby Flay. Note the title. He's the one doing the challenging. He's the one scouting the dish and location out. He's the cocky visitor going in over his head yet overcoming the odds a decent amount of the time. Now more recently someone decided to trot out this idea again, only remixed into Beat Bobby Flay. This time he has the home field advantage...and that's about it. It's basically the John Cena UNITED STATES Open Challenge. Two of Bobby's "friends" sample dishes from two genuine up and comer or established chefs who fight for the right to beat Bobby Flay. These friends make well intended ribs on Bobby Flay but try their best to get the crowd to root for the other guys, generally acting as two heel commentators. The person who wins the qualifier, i.e. the one best positioned to beat Bobby Flay then gets to spring the dish of her or his choice on the chef and they get an hour to cook it. The actual judging of this round is not done by the heel commentators but by three expert judges on the food in question. The competitor is usually the arrogant one this time around and the crowd is always in Cena sucks mode, with the competitor usually throwing smack talk at Bobby and him just taking it.
The interesting thing about Throwdown is though...Bobby Flay almost ALWAYS wins.
