GAME SHOW

With about six minutes left in the first quarter Saturday, the Xtreme’s Tommy Maddox scored the first touchdown by a Los Angeles pro football team in the Coliseum in more than six years.

I missed it.

I was talking to Cindy, Shanna and Roberta.

They were sitting in a section behind the end zone.

Only, it wasn’t a Dawg Pound or Black Hole sort of section.

It was a hot tub sort of section.

Wearing bikinis the size of sweat bands, beers in their hands, water up to their necks, the three women had just completed the most impressive drive of this game.

Earlier Saturday afternoon, someone affiliated with the Xtreme had phoned their place of employment, the Spearmint Rhino gentleman’s club.

“Get us three strippers down here, and fast,” the official reportedly said.

The three women--Cindy says she is a waitress--piled into a car and drove to the Coliseum.

Once there, amid 45-degree temperatures, they climbed gingerly into a hot tub filled with rubber duckies and proceeded to wave for the camera, gyrate for the crowd, splish and splash. Three quarters later, they were still there.

I’m not really sure what happened in the football game. In the words of the wrestling people who run this new XFL league, I don’t know who was whupped, whomped, wasted or whiplashed.

But I do know who was wrinkled.

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The game was good enough to write about.

If only the XFL made it that easy.

If only this could be about a local team of NFL castoffs mounting a fourth-quarter comeback in its home debut to win a game in double overtime.

But the Xtreme’s 39-32 victory over the Chicago Enforcers Saturday in the second week of the inaugural XFL season?

A sidebar.

The main story begins with how there was just as much action among the 35,813 in the Coliseum stands, with bottles being thrown, breasts being bared, and one fight that nearly knocked the loser into the visiting bench.

“It ain’t fair,” said one official working the Enforcers sideline. “These guys talk trash to the fans, and then when the bottles fly, they are protected with pads. I don’t have any pads.”

Pat Lynch, Coliseum general manager, issued this statement through a spokesman:

“It was no more rowdy than a USC game.”

I guess I missed that USC game when one fan, apparently off his rocker, stood with his arms raised and absorbed a horrific five-minute pelting of popcorn and beer and trash.

I guess I also missed that USC game when the entire side of the Coliseum turned and chanted at a young woman to pull up her shirt, wildly applauding when she did.

“I’m very concerned,” said J.K. McKay, the Xtreme general manager. “I don’t know exactly what we will do, but something will be done. We will fix this. People cannot cross the line.”

That line Saturday wasn’t just crossed with fists. It was also crossed with taste.

This sort of chaos is a common occurrence in professional wrestling, the first passion of XFL founder Vince McMahon.

It’s just a little unsettling to see it with its arms around a sport that’s supposed to be real.

There was a cursing pregame welcome from that wrestler known as The Rock. There were dirty-dancing cheerleaders on strip-joint-style stages.

And don’t forget our friends in the hot tub.

“I think it’s a little bit hokey, to tell you the truth,” said Shanna.

She calls it hokey.

I call it, males ages 18-34.

That is the demographic that this new league is trying to attract. I know, because The Rock told me so. He actually used that word, “demographic.”

“Those are the kind of people we are obviously trying to reach,” The Rock said after announcing to the screaming crowd that the NFL should stick it where the sun doesn’t shine. “We are looking for people who want entertainment, who want to have a good time.”

Statistics have proved that playing to this audience sells.

A stroll through countless black shirts and scowls Saturday showed that anyone else is pretty much not welcome.

“Hey, seven rows up, a pretty girl,” said Bob Muldowney, the mobile camera driver underneath the NBC sideline camera.

“You looking for pretty girls?” I asked.

“You going to point them out to me?” he said.

Muldowney asked if I was writing a story about the game.

“Yes,” I said.

“In the sports section?” he asked.

“Good question,” I replied.

The shame of Saturday was that through all the gadgetry and wires and running cameramen and enough equipment to make it look like a movie set, there were a couple of good football performances.

Somebody named Jeremaine Copeland caught 190 yards’ worth of passes for the Xtreme, many of them while leaping over two defenders. Old friend Tommy Maddox scrambled and ducked and threw for 388 yards and four touchdowns.

But even with all that, there was lingering odor.

As with anything touched by Vince McMahon, you have to wonder.

Was it real?

Did the Xtreme, after being totally outclassed for three quarters, really rebound to score twice in the final three minutes of regulation?

Were the Enforcers suddenly that easy to shut out in the second half after scoring 25 points in the first half?

Watching from the sidelines, with some impossible catches and diving misses, it seemed real. Watching the players in the locker room afterward, their joy unrestrained, it seemed real.

“How could you possibly script that?” McKay asked. “How could you make all those great catches.”

Also considering that Las Vegas has endorsed the sport with regular gambling lines, scripting would seem improbable.

As improbable as having a ticket stub that reads, “Hot tub.”

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at his e-mail address: bill.plaschke@latimes.com.