In fact, the physical beatings are what give NBC's The Contender more authenticity than competitions to see which fashion model can stomach the most weasel entrails. The show, which premiered Monday and airs its second episode at 10 tonight before moving to 8 p.m. Sundays, takes 16 middleweight boxers and has them do what they do: fight - in this case for a $1 million prize.

We get to know the boxers through melodramatic vignettes about their families and lives and struggles. Then we cheer as they try to hurt each other. Each episode ends in one battle between two contenders. The loser is off the show.

Of course, all the boxers, and the families who lovingly support them in the show, were screen-tested and chosen for their looks, their character types, and gripping back stories. And yes, the climactic fights are edited and scored with music, as if they were movie scenes.

But the bruises - and the lives these guys have built around the brutal sport - are real. This is the show that includes Najai Turpin, billed as "a tough, punching street kid from Philadelphia fighting for a better life for his family." His story is too real. In the early hours of Valentine's Day in West Philly, months after the series was taped, Turpin committed suicide.

"The episode in which he was most depicted will stand as a wonderful testament to who he was," an NBC statement said. "It will not be changed." The network won't say which episode that will be.

Boxing is experiencing one of its periodic revivals. Million Dollar Baby won the best-picture Oscar by showing how magnificent and horrible a sport it can be. Russell Crowe plays '30s champ Jim Braddock in Cinderella Man, coming later this year.

The Contender could be a further coup for a sport that hasn't been in network prime time regularly since the mid-1970s. That was when Muhammad Ali was still punching, Sugar Ray Leonard and his fellow 1976 Olympic champs were heroes, and Rocky won its own Oscar.

Because boxers often come with pathos and conflict, it's no surprise so much drama has been built around them (Raging Bull, On the Waterfront, The Great White Hope, Requiem for a Heavyweight, The Harder They Fall, Somebody Up There Likes Me, Body and Soul). Last year, four or five treatments for boxing-based reality shows floated around Hollywood. Fox produced one last fall, in partnership with boxer Oscar de la Hoya. After a few swings in prime time, it got kicked to cable.

The Contender comes from Mark Burnett, whose Survivor and The Apprentice have defined the slickly produced fake voyeurism that reality viewers love. Burnett is joined by movie producer Jeffrey Katzenberg as well as Leonard and Rocky creator Sylvester Stallone, who act as sort of good-Trump/bad-Trump cohosts.

They probably wished for Trumpier ratings. The premiere drew an estimated 8.1 million viewers from 9:30 to 11 p.m., according to Nielsen Media Research. That's far short of the 15.1 million NBC's Medium has averaged in the 10 p.m. slot. CBS finished first from 9:30 to 11 as Two and a Half Men got 17.4 million and CSI: Miami had 21.7 million.

Give the producers credit for using legitimate fighters instead of ringers. Jonathan Reid, according to Stallone's voiceover, is "a seasoned pro with a checkered past" and a 33-1 record. Reid once fought a guy who has fought middleweight champion Bernard Hopkins. We meet Alfonso Gomez, "an unknown Mexican-born fighter just trying to prove he belongs," and Anthony Bonsante, "a single dad whose career has been all about providing for his children."

Of course, it's still network TV, so the boxers are split into teams for silly games that determine who fights whom. No personality conflict or contender's fear of disappointing family members is left undocumented.

Fight scenes are backed by music reminiscent of Rocky, with strings and horns conveying heroism and a time-running-out timpani banging down the seconds. (Katzenberg hired composer Hans Zimmer, whose extensive movie work includes Gladiator.) Conspicuously absent is an on-screen clock timing rounds; there's no way to know how much the action has been edited.

Still, even in this staged arena, we get what thrills and repulses us about boxing: two desperate people trying to hurt each other for the entertainment of the crowd.

At the end of the first episode, after losing in an upset to Gomez, Peter Manfredo Jr. appears with his face busted up. "I feel like I let everybody down, not just myself, but my wife, my father, my daughter," he says. "All's I can hear is my father in my head." And the show just ends.

Expect similar "coulda been a contender" regrets to conclude every episode. It's contrived and manipulative, sure. But nobody has to say, "You're fired."