Celebrity Wrestling (ITV1): Welcome, we were told, to "the toughest show on TV". I agree. This is certainly the toughest show to watch because it's so unremittingly awful.

The only winners will be the BBC, whose struggling Strictly Dance Fever might pick up a few more viewers as they flee from this abomination.

Whoever came up the idea of Celebrity Wrestling should be made to take part in the forthcoming Celebrity Shark Bait. I kid you not, there really is a programme in the works in which an assortment of once-famous, nearly-famous and desperate-to-be-famous people are locked in a cage which is then dangled in shark-infested waters.

Send your nominations in now. Meanwhile, we have many of the same old not-quite-celebrities vying for our attention as wrestlers. James Hewitt, Kate Lawler and Jeff Brazier are old hands at this reality TV game. The others are an assortment of former sportspeople, glamour girls, a children's TV presenter, the Newcastle one from Liberty X and, of course, someone who used to be in a soap and hasn't worked much since.

Those who fondly recall Saturday afternoon wrestling on ITV with Kent Walton commentating will be sorely disappointed by this version, partly because there's so little wrestling in it. The show is more like Gladiators crossed with It's A Knockout. It comes with a hollering audience who make a lot of noise while blasts of steam and fireworks are let off around the set.

Kate Thornton, whom I'd grown to quite like on The X Factor, is reduced to shouting above the infernal din to make herself heard. She also has to contend with intensely irritating co-presenter Rowdy Roddy Piper, a US wrestler who appears to be under the illusion that shouting will make him interesting.

The opening fight between Hewitt and Oliver Skeete consisted of them trying to push each other off the platform, hitting each other with big clubs and throwing a ball around. Afterwards, Hewitt said he hadn't been so exhausted in a long time. Not since the last time he trawled around Fleet Street trying to flog the story of him and a certain princess, I expect.

The show tried to get us excited with the promise of girl-on-girl action. Jenny Powell was really up for a fight against "professional skier and busty blonde" Victoria Silvstedt. "At least I've got real hair," she shrieked. I don't remember Mick McManus or Jackie Pallo using those sort of psychological tactics.

The level of competition was typified by a round entitled "rip wrestling" in which the women wore special outfits and had to rip them off each other.

"It's meltdown next time," Jenny shrieked (she does a lot of it) at Ice Maiden. That's Victoria's wrestling name. All the competitors have all been given silly names, a form of ridicule that they fully deserve. This enabled the commentator to announce the Jeff Brazier and Marc Bannerman face-off as The Pocket Rocket v El Diablo.

"A classic case of David and Goliath," he added, emphasising the little and large confrontation. Come to think of it, the real Little and Large in a wrestling ring would been more entertaining, although might not have provided as many laughs as Jeff and Marc's amateur fumblings in the name of wrestling.

Published: 25/04/2005