"WHAT have you got against an Irishman who drinks beer no matter what his size and just loves to fight? You don't understand the Irish! You're anti-immigration! You're xenophobic!" These words were used in defence of an extremely small gentleman dressed in what can only be described as a leprechaun's Sunday best. His name?

Little Bastard. Despite this being his chosen name, one of the commentators on WWE: No Way Out took exception to his colleague using it. "He might be a freak, but he's got parents!" he screamed, which was nice of him.

Wrestling is not something that has ever consistently held the interest of this column. However, I am aware of adults that count themselves as aficionados, helping any WWE event staged in this country to sell out in seconds. I know of one person who travels abroad to attend these events. This scares me.

As you know, real physical violence has little place in the world of pro wrestling. What it does offer is top quality pantomime with half nelsons instead of Widow Twanky.

Last Sunday's four-hour event, staged in a jam-packed Staples Center in LA, was merely a warm-up for Wrestlemania, which people pay top box office rates to watch. It's all part of the stage setting, allowing grudges to be fostered before it all goes off properly on the big night.

For the uninitiated, it's a unique experience. While watching actual sport the urge is to decide who will win based on ability, performance etc. With this, predictions are based on what you think the scriptwriters might come up with.

People have been doing this with Coronation St for years; pro wrestling is simply soap without any sense of reality and ludicrous amounts of cartoon violence, which probably explains why most of us know young male adults who can't get enough. The charming Little Bastard, by the way, is sidekick to Finlay, a much larger man in a leotard with a shamrock on it. They faced The Boogeyman and his diminutive sidekick, named, unimaginatively, The Little Boogeyman.

These creatures seemed to be from some sort of swamp, and kept eating what appeared to be worms. "What in the hell are we watching! ?" cried a commentator, shocked and appalled in the brilliant way that wrestling commentators tend to be, as if all the lunacy happening in front of them was somehow an affront to the noble art. When somebody climbs out of the ring and starts swinging a dwarf at their opponent, or a character that had no part of the original bout races in from stage left to hammer some poor knackered unfortunate, they scream things like "What do we have a referee for?".

And now, of course, there's the added bonus of pneumatic ladies, there for obvious reasons but also presumably to reduce the homoerotic not-so-subtext of tag team 'action'.

All of these words are probably for naught, of course. If you're a fan reading this you will no doubt be despairing of my ignorance of wrestling's nuances whereas if you think it's all a bit sad, this is unlikely to change your mind. But if you ever have a hankering to see a 20-stone man knock out a worm-eating swamp midget with a shillelagh to the head, keep an eye on Sky Sports in the wee hours. As they carefully put it themselves, it's pure 'sports entertainment'.

Hidden elsewhere on digital TV last week was the pilot of a new show based on a pretty old book. Friday Night Lights, written by HG Bissinger, is a stunning read, following the real-life travails of the Permian Panthers, a Texan high school football team, representing a town with nothing to look forward to except the Friday night game. Imagine if there was no senior football or hurling championship, with the minors elevated to headline act, living in the same town as all of their fans and you get some idea of the pressures that were heaped on these young men and their coach. There was a decent film made out of it recently starring Billy Bob Thornton, which, unsurprisingly given the subject matter, sank without trace over here. This show takes the sketch of the idea, with the Dillon Panthers preparing for a tilt at the State Championship under a young, likeable coach.

Like the film, there's a jerky, ultrarealistic quality to the production, which cleverly introduced the characters as they spoke to an NBC sports crew before their first big game. There's the Peyton Manning-esque lantern-jawed quarterback, the mouthy black receiver, the hard-drinking defensive end, and the nerdy back-up QB. It opened very promisingly, with fine action sequences, solid acting and some witty lines.

Once those lights came on and the game got going, it did get a little cheesy and overwrought, but such is the way of these things. It's still worth seeking out if you have access to ITV4, with the potential to be the best sports soap going.

Apart from the shillelagh-swinging adventures of Little Bastard, obviously.