Billy Tyler, an All-American football player for Iowa, loses his leg after a combat injury, bringing an end to his hopes of playing professionally and devastating fellow Iowan Radar. Frank takes advantage of Klinger and Zale's mutual animosity to arrange a boxing match to make him feel better about himself.
Attention, all personnel! Iowa has the ball and the following tropes:
- Boring, but Practical: Tyler reminisces about a game where Iowa was behind, but they were able to break through with the short pass – passing the ball down the field a little at a time until it goes into the end zone.
- Boxing Episode: Motivated by Margaret, Frank arranges a boxing match between Klinger and Zale to improve his own morale.
- Despair Event Horizon: After learning his leg and potential professional career are both gone, Tyler wants to kill himself.
- "Eureka!" Moment: While describing the difficulty moving the ball through short passes in the Iowa game, Tyler realizes that he has to keep trying now that he has faced the setback of losing his leg.
- First-Name Basis: Tyler is one of the few characters over the run of the series to call Radar by his given name, Walter.
- Flynning: Done deliberately by Klinger and Zale, who have chosen not to take their fight seriously.
- Hypocritical Humor: Zale is pissed at Klinger for not participating in the fight at Rosie's while simultaneously proudly declares that he avoided the fight himself.
- Ironic Juxtaposition: The episode opens by intercutting the battle where Billy is wounded with the fight at Rosie's.
- Let's You and Him Fight:
- Zale was happy to encourage others to join the fight in Rosie's Bar, but didn't dare throw a punch himself.
- Frank uses Margaret's suggestion of having Klinger and Zale fight out their frustrations to make himself look better in her eyes.
- Lovable Coward: Zale and Klinger are quite a pair of these.
- Not So Above It All: Margaret, as demonstrated when the boxing match starts up:Hawkeye: Isn't this exciting, Major? People fighting, punching each other out.Margaret: Of course it isn't. I think it's barbaric.B.J.: And you wouldn't miss it for the world.Margaret: [smiles] Right.
- She's also the one laughing the hardest when Frank gets clocked.
- The Tag: One of the only two scenes in which Colonel Potter appears. Most likely because Harry Morgan was busy directing this episode.
- Take a Third Option: Rather than fight until one of them is beaten senseless, Klinger and Zale direct their punches to the one who put them in the ring in the first place: Frank.
- Taking You with Me: Frank initially tries to get Klinger and Zale court-martialed for punching him... until they (and Potter) remind him that he would be in just as much trouble for having organized the fight against regulations.
- You Just Told Me: Hawkeye and B.J. set Frank up to confess about the fight this way:Frank: That rotten fink. He snitched. He spilled the beans, didn't he?Hawkeye: Yeah, he told us all about you.Frank: And I set up that fight to be top secret.Hawkeye: Well, you did a good job 'til a couple of seconds ago.
