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"Let's get it on!"
Mills Lane, referee

Celebrity Deathmatch is a 1998 claymation animation series broadcast on MTV.

The concept behind this show is that celebrities would fight each other to the death in the ring, claymation-style.

The show first premiered on MTV's 1997 animation show, Cartoon Sushi, with Marilyn Manson killing Charles Manson by ripping his skeleton out through his mouth. After it became a success, "Deathbowl 98" was released and shown during the Super Bowl XXXII halftime show. Eventually, it began running as a weekly series first on MTV from 1998 to 2002, then Uncanceled to MTV2 for two more seasons in 2006 and 2007. After an eight-year hiatus, MTV2 announced on April 2015 that the show would be uncancelled for a second time, and unlike the previous uncancellation, series creator Eric Fogel will be involved this time around. Unfortunately, in November of 2016 Fogel announced via Twitter that MTV had ceased production on the re-boot for unknown reasons. Then in December of 2018 Ice Cube announced he would be producing a revival in association with MTV as part of a plan to reboot numerous properties.

There was also a fighting game released for the PlayStation, PlayStation 2, Xbox, and Windows PCs. It was also planned for a GameCube release.


No tropes were harmed in the making of this page. Anyway, they're just words:

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     A-F 
  • Aborted Arc: The overall storyline hinted at two that were never resolved and likely abandoned due to the show's cancellations at those points: Debbie's pregnancy, and the possible return of Stacy Cornbred, which was constantly used as a taunt by Tally Wong.
  • Acrofatic: Meat Loaf. In spite of his large size, he's able to move quite nimbly in his fight against Jonathan Davis. Johnny even says that he's "as agile as a cat".
  • Actually Pretty Funny: While some celebrities (such as Janeane Garofalo) and relatives of celebrities (such as The Game's father) took offense at their portrayals, others thought they were great. Tommy Lee, for example, loved the way in which he defeated Ron Jeremy, as did Jennifer Lopez regarding how she beat Dolly Parton — she only wondered why they gave her a different accent. "Weird Al" Yankovic would actually frequently show a section of his fight with Al Gore during his live tours, despite ultimately losing that one. Steven Spielberg wrote to comment that he and his children loved his appearance too, despite the fact that he lost against Alfred Hitchcock (although he also wanted a rematch). Miss Cleo was also pleased with her appearance, both on the show and in the video game; in fact, she told her kids that if they ever got mad at her, they could just play the Celebrity Deathmatch video game and beat her up.
  • Adaptational Badass: You'd be hard pressed to find a celebrity who wasn't given this treatment.
  • Adaptational Dumbass: Sherlock Holmes is depicted as a Clueless Detective who can't even identify his opponent (Jack the Ripper) and ends up killing him by accident. Johnny insists that maybe the old stories were embellished somehow.
  • Added Alliterative Appeal: After watching an old clip from the 1950s between John Wayne and Groucho Marx, Nick says, "Vintage violence from the vaults, nothing better."
  • A Day in the Limelight: The Mills Lane special, which consisted of an MTV Cribs style visit to the real life Mills Lane's house and meeting his wife and kids, interspersed with select matches from his claymation "career."
  • Admiring the Abomination: During the fight between Steve Irwin and Medusa, Steve Irwin spends the entire fight in awe of this "rare specimen".
  • The Alcoholic: Dean Martin was depicted as such in his bout against Jerry Lewis, with him being hammered and even having drink after drink instead of actually fighting Lewis. He only starts fighting back when Jerry knocks the drink out of his hand.
  • Amazon Chaser: Albert Einstein spends his entire fight against Chyna trying to woo her, as he finds her incredibly attractive. Chyna isn't having any of it, and his constant swooning over her just makes her angrier and leads to her ultimately finishing him off.
  • And Show It to You: A very common way that celebrities on this show finish off their foes is by ripping out their organs. Some notable examples include: William Shatner tearing out Burt Reynolds' internal organs and selling them on the internet, Kobe Bryant tearing out Shaquille O'Neal's organs and throwing them into a hoop like basketballs, Anne Robinson getting her ovaries ripped out by Bob Barker, and Chris Martin getting his heart ripped out by Bono after Bono says to his audience that they can donate to his cause, if they "look into their heart".
  • Animal Motifs:
    • Hugh Hefner is, of course, associated with rabbits, a reference to Playboy's iconic rabbit logo. He wears bunny slippers, a group of Playboy Bunnies come to his match to cheer him on, and his "signature move" is a jumping attack called the "Playboy Bunny Hop".
    • During the fight between Drew Barrymore and Farrah Fawcett, the two of them are trained in one of five Deadly Venoms — a mysterious form of kung fu themed around animals. Barrymore's discipline is that of the Giraffe (tall and leggy with a long neck) and Fawcett's is that of the Dodo (a relic of the past with a silly name).
  • Animate Body Parts: Stephen King's leg, an arm that may have been either that of Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera, Ashlee Simpson's nose, Albert Einstein's brain and spine, Eddie Murphy's hand, Mary-Kate Olsen's stomach, The Rock's eyebrow, Paul Teutul Sr.'s moustache, Beni Trauma's arm, and Nicky Jr's brain have all been shown to move on their own.
  • An Arm and a Leg: Happened a lot, but fighters were usually able to effortlessly continue fighting, and often even win, after losing a limb; some, including Dave Thomas, Gene Simmons, and Linda Hamilton, won the match after losing both arms.
  • Annual Title: The name of the third Fandemonium episode is "Fandemonium 2000", since it first aired in the year 2000.
    • Not to mention every single "Deathbowl" episode, which is named for the year in which it aired.
  • Arrows on Fire: Geena Davis tries to use one of these to light the torch during the episode “Deathbowl 2000” (which was sports-themed). It misses and hits Nick in the head.
  • Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:
    • From the "Bill Clinton vs. Ken Starr" fight: *smack* "That's for ruining my presidency." *smack* "That's for ruining my marriage." *smack* "THAT'S for ruining my chances of hiring any more cute interns!"
    • Nick's show, Suddenly Diamond, was canceled because of inane humor, gratuitous violence, and lack of a perky female character.
  • Art Attacker: In the fight between Martha Stewart and Sandra Bernhard, Martha uses a hot-glue gun as a weapon, and makes Bernhard's innards into a Christmas ornament.
  • Artistic License – History: One episode had Benito Mussolini appearing who for some reason was wearing a pickelhaube. Why an Italian would be wearing a German helmet from the First World War is not addressed.
  • Anyone Can Die: Well, almost anyone. The main cast does seem to be exempt, but given what happened to Stacy, even they can be killed if the need arises.
  • As Himself: "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, The Undertaker, Vince McMahon, Chyna, Mick Foley (seeing a pattern?), Marilyn Manson, Lucy Lawless, Whoopi Goldberg, Jason "Wee Man" Acuña, Gilbert Gottfried, boxing referee Mills Lane, Debbie Matenopoulos, and Ron Jeremy (in the video game) have all voiced themselves on the show. In a related note, several celebrities shown as participants on the show have mentioned they would have actually done their own voices if they had been asked to do so.
  • Ass Kicks You: Naturally present in the Jennifer Lopez vs. Dolly Parton fight, where Jennifer's butt and Dolly's breasts were enhanced with cybernetic add-ons.
  • Ass Shove:
    • Al Gore wins his fight against "Weird Al" Yankovic by pulling a stick out of his ass (the "executive branch") note  and beating him with it. That stick? A very large tree.
    • The Beastie Boys shoved Marlon Brando up the exhaust pipe of the Backstreet Boys' mecha robot.
    • There was also the Lucy Lawless/Calista Flockhart match, where this Trope was used in a way that was, for lack of a better term, bizarre. An accident in the fight has Calista wind up with her head up Lucy's butt, at which point, after a few minutes of struggling, Lucy is able to completely "absorb" Calista into her body through that end of her. This somehow causes Calista to end up in her womb, which results in Lucy, at the end of the episode, giving birth to Calista as she would a newborn daughter. (In short, this show is not only violent, it's downright weird.)
    • Andre Agassi kills Tiger Woods by using a pitching machine to fire tennis balls up Woods' ass until he explodes.
    • Clarissa Dickson Wright of the cooking show Two Fat Ladies stuffs Emeril Lagasse's ass with lard like a turkey.
    • During the International episode, a Running Gag was that Nick Diamond would keep getting pulled aside during travel for an aggressive cavity search.
  • Ascended Extra: Famous boxing promoter Don King, who was basically Kenny during season 1, finally appeared as a fighter in season 2, the opponent being Donald Trump.
  • Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: After 98 Degrees' Humongous Mecha malfunctions and goes on a rampage through the city, "Stone Cold" Steve Austin tries to use his enlarging ray to turn himself into a giant in order to stop them. It malfunctions, and hits Jessica Simpson instead.
    • Not to mention blink-182's mecha, against which the aforementioned boy band was fighting, and which was destroyed (with Tom, Mark, and Travis still inside no less).
  • Authority Equals Asskicking: Mills Lane will NOT accept any insubordination in his ring, and is more than capable of taking down troublemakers, which Judge Judy was made well aware.
    • "Stone Cold" Steve Austin wears this trope as well. If you value your health, don't ask questions when he tells you to do something.
    • Another example of this trope is Bill Clinton, in his fight against Kenneth Starr. Clinton was the president of the United States at the time, and is quite a skilled fighter as well, eventually winning his fight with Starr.
  • Awesome Aussie: Steve Irwin is presented in all his wild, fearless glory, taking on the Medusa with his usual confident panache. He's not even a little scared of the mythological monster, he's just beyond thrilled to find such a rare specimen. In fact, he slays Medusa by complete accident and is more pissed off at himself for killing such a rare specimen than relieved or happy.
  • Back from the Dead: Several celebrities show up even though they've been killed before, like John Tesh, David Letterman, and Drew Barrymore note 
    • And ones that had died before the show as well, like Bob Marley. A fair amount of the fights involving dead celebrities are made possible due to the CDM Time Machine.
    • It was a running gag in the first season that Don King was frequently killed in the audience.
    • Nick makes a Deal with the Devil to bring back *NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys for their showdown.
    • In the revival, some celebrities came back after being killed in the original run. Some people believe this was because the crew for the revival didn't do enough research about the original run. Ironically, several of them ended up winning their matches in the revival.
    • Moments after losing her match to Hilary Duff, Nick decides to resurrect Lindsay Lohan using the time machine.
  • The Bad Guy Wins: This happens from time to time, where a celebrity with a bad or negative reputation kills a celebrity who wouldn't deserve it, and is often downright sadistic about it. (Of course, there are plenty of times when the opposite has happened.) Word of God claimed that the outcomes of the matches were determined strictly with humor in mind, not on what made sense.
  • Bar Brawl: Invoked with the "TLC vs. Dixie Chicks" fight, where the ring is done up to look like a Wild West saloon.
  • "Basic Instinct" Legs-Crossing Parody: Sharon Stone, of course, does this pose to limber up in her corner before her fight with Kathy Bates.
  • Battle Couple: On several occasions, there have been CDM matches between two famous celebrity couples.
    • Bruce Willis and Demi Moore vs. Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman (from the episode "The Missing Girl") was the first example of this; Nick even said the fight defined the true meaning of the phrase "till death do us part".
    • Later, during the episode "Teen Night" the main event was a "Deathmatch Prom" where two couples battled to the death to see who would be Prom King and Queen — and while one of those couples (Jennifer Love Hewitt and Scott Wolf) merely played a couple on Party of Five, the other (Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillippe) was a genuine couple at the time.
    • Finally, "Nick's Little Friend" gave us Warren Beatty and Annette Bening vs. Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon. This fight ends up being a subversion, as during the fight, Sarandon leaves Robbins for Beatty and Bening gets furious and smashes Beatty and Sarandon's heads in. Robbins and Bening then form a bond with each other and fall in love while beating Beatty and Sarandon senseless, making it a double subversion.
  • Battle in the Center of the Mind: Done literally with John Cusack vs. John Malkovich. Of course, the whole idea is a Shout-Out to Being John Malkovich.
  • Beat the Curse Out of Him: In the first Halloween Episode, Nicky Jr. gets possessed by a demon. The Undertaker solves this by beating him up until the demon exits his body.
  • Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Whether this Trope is played straight, averted, or outright defied was very much Depending on the Writer, and it could even be different for two celebrities in the same match. Usually the winner of a match turned out no worse for wear (key word is usually) while the loser was beaten to a bloody pulp. But that wasn't always the case.
  • Berserk Button: Has helped combatants before, like Queen Latifah against LL Cool J.
    • Do not try to take over the world or Nick Diamond will pull your brain out through your eye socket. Nor should you try to take his job by claiming he's dead.
    • Try to hurt an animal in Bob Barker's presence, he'll rip your ovaries out. Anne Robinson learned this the hard way.
    • God help you if you mistake Kathy Griffin for Vicki Lewis.
    • Jerry Lewis knocking the martini out of Dean Martin's hands causes Martin to start kicking Jerry's ass (after a few sobering "tough love" slaps from Frank Sinatra).
    • In all of Pamela Anderson's fights her berserk button has been Tommy Lee. She challenges RuPaul to a deathmatch because of RuPaul's attempt to flirt with Tommy who was her husband; she even wins this fight because of this trope. In Pam's second fight, her berserk button gets pushed multiple times due to her opponent, Tommy's previous wife Heather Locklear trying to kill Tommy Lee, since they were literally fighting to determine whether or not he dies ( he did, right after Heather took Pam out.) In her third fight, she's fed up with Tommy and decides to take out her anger, which leads to a major Curb-Stomp Battle in Pam's favour.
      • And let's not forget, Locklear also had a berserk button of her own.
    • From the Sex and the City fight on the episode "Slaughter in the City:"
      Kim Cattrall (to "SARAH JESSICA PARKER"): "Honey, I was making Porky's while you were still popping zits on Square Pegs."
      Cynthia Nixon: You were in Porky's? But that was 20 years ago. Which means you're—" (Kapow!)
    • The episode "Deathcon 2001" featured a match between Linda Hamilton and Sigourney Weaver. Weaver was ahead, having ripped off both of Linda's arms. Linda walked over to where some kids in the audience were sitting and asked if she could borrow their pen, which she took with her mouth. Linda then wrote the words "I'M THE KING OF THE WORLD!" in big letters on the mat, and asked Sigourney that, before she kills her, could Sigourney at least read what Linda had written.
      Sigourney (not getting the significance): "'I'm the king of the world?'"
      Linda: (snapping, screaming): "Titanic? In your case, it should have been Microscopic!"
    • Johnny goes mad when Nick refuses to bring on the main event in the "Backstreet Boys vs. *NSYNC" match. (Both combatants were already dead.) Also, in an earlier episode when Nick repeatedly slaps Johnny upside the head to prove he would be the faster of the two, Johnny eventually snaps by ripping Nick's ear off.
    • DON'T call Mandy Moore a Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera wannabe.
    • Unless you enjoy getting eviscerated, it's best not to call Joe C a midget, or take credit for his accomplishments.
    • Don't touch Christopher Walken's hair or he'll flatten your head till your eyes pop out.
    • Don't make fun of Adam Sandler's deceased bulldog, Meatball.
    • It's also not wise to insult Lindsay Lohan about her family to her face.
  • Beware the Nice Ones:
    • In one match, Tom Hanks gets beaten up by Sean Penn at first, but the tables turn when Sean Penn beats up a random photographer, angering Tom Hanks.
    • "MY NAME IS LEANN FUCKING RIMES!!!"
    • Also, Mahatma Gandhi. Though that was because he had his cerebrospinal fluid (and, essentially, his personality) swapped out with that of Genghis Khan.
    • Bob Barker. Anne Robinson threatening to kill a puppy causes him to rip out her ovaries, killing her.
    • David Spade spends most of the match getting completely pummeled until he slings one of Scottie Pippen's NBA championship rings through Steven Seagal's brain.
    • Don't mess with Mandy Moore — you may not live to see the consequences.
    • Then there's Garth Brooks, who managed to subdue Marilyn Manson. Sure, Manson got the last laugh, but it was still pretty darn impressive.
    • A sort of weird example with Steve Irwin, where he does manage to kill Medusa, but it's completely by accident, and he's more interested in teaching the audience about her than actually fighting.
    • J. K. Rowling seems harmless at first, until she summons Voldemort.
    • Keith Flint found this out the hard way, although the person dealing with had help, or was her either free will or not.
    • Christopher Walken during his fight with Gary Oldman, though he has a Heroic BSoD afterwards.
    • Michael Jordan is shown as the "good guy" in his fight with Dennis Rodman, but that doesn't stop him from shoving Rodman in the garbage can ( which somehow kills him...)
    • In the Survivor royal-rumble match, after Jerri and Susan decide to team up, the audience vote in Colleen and Elisabeth, who Jerri mocks for being "nice girls"... until they both convince Susan to turn on Jerri in order to gain popularity; even before then, Colleen blinds Jerri with medical cream, and even manages to temporarily subdue Susan before being cornered.
      • Once Tina is voted into the ring, she comes across as a maternal and caring woman... until she pulls a Face–Heel Turn on Elisabeth, Colby, AND Colleen. She ultimately wins the fight.
    • The Sex and the City four-way match has Kim Cattrall prey on Kristin Davis's naivete when the latter seems too nice to actually put up a fight by giving her a poisoned Cosmopolitan. Turns out Kristin was only pretending to be nice and naive as she waits for Kim to take out Sarah and Cynthia before standing up, delivering a brutal insult calling out Kim for being a slut ("Unlike you, I NEVER SWALLOW!" referring to the poisoned Cosmo), and then bisecting Kim using the biggest "back massager" (dildo) they made.
    • Hilary Duff is mostly at a disadvantage in her fight with Lindsay Lohan but when she finally loses it after Lohan tries to set her on fire, she brutally rips off Lohan's arms and legs before finishing with her head.
  • Big Eater:
    • Marlon Brando is portrayed this way in "The Battle of Boys With Toys". He constantly references food throughout the episode, his dressing room is loaded with food, he is being fed ice cream by his personal assistant while Stacey interviews him, and he is so fat that he cannot get up from his chair and has to be lowered onto the ring to referee the match.
    • Anna Nicole Smith, mostly to provide a contrast with her opponent, the diet-obsessed Sarah Ferguson. She's constantly chowing down on food during the match, including a bag of pork rinds that she calls a "between-snack snack", and her foe says "Eat this!" before attacking her and calls her "Jabba the Slut".
  • Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Jenny McCarthy at the end of her deathmatch against Carmen Electra. After being repeatedly groped by Howard Stern, both team up to teach Stern a lesson. While Carmen is honestly worried about Jenny's safety when Howard Stern is about to blow up, Jenny is only waiting for the right moment to turn on Carmen, actually directing her right into her death. She even calls Carmen a sucker for having fallen for her ruse.
  • Bland-Name Product:
    • During the Michael Jordan vs. Dennis Rodman fight, MJ drinks a can of "Peppie".
    • During the Kevin Costner vs. Kevin Smith fight, Smith puts Costner in an "EdFex" box.
    • During the Derek Jeter vs. John Rocker fight, John Rocker smacks Derek Jeter with a box of “Cracker Jerks”.
  • Bloodier and Gorier: The revival tended to be this, with the bloodshed being more exaggerated.
  • Bloody Hilarious: The show is full of blood and gore, all of which is Played for Laughs.
    • On the other hand, the show would sometmes go for Bloodless Carnage instead, with massive wounds that don't shed a single drop of blood. Like pretty much everything else on the show, it's usually determined by Rule of Funny.
  • Boob-Based Gag:
    • The fight between Dolly Parton and Jennifer Lopez has the two combatants being given special armor that would enlarge Dolly's breasts and Lopez's butt and allow them to be used as weapons.
    • The fight between Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee has Pamela crushing Tommy's skull between her breasts.
    • During the fight between Rebecca Romijn and Naomi Campbell, both of the fighters apparently kept a vast amount of items in their cleavage. For Rebecca this included a cellphone (complete with a vibrating ring tone that made her chest jiggle) and a needle, and both fighters kept water bottles in their bountiful bosoms.
    • The Survivor battle royale has Tina remark the she'll get a facelift and boob job. She's also bouncing at various points, and she bashes Colby's head in with her chest.
  • Book Ends:
    • In "Censorship Problems", both Ron Jeremy and Moe Howard are killed in the same fashion: impalement through the head with wood. Not only that, but consider the following: Tommy Lee killed Ron Jeremy with his penis, while Larry Fine, after accidentally de-aging himself into a sperm, helped Curly win the main event by going for Luciano Pavarotti's eye.
  • Brains Evil, Brawn Good: This Trope was Inverted and then played straight in the same episode, with Albert Einstein and Chyna. First inverted when Chyna acts out the Heel wrestler part up to eleven and brutally kills Einstein, simply For the Evulz. Then played straight when Einstein's brain stages a Faked Kidnapping of itself demanding a five million dollar ransom, so it can steal the money; it gets away with it too, and is last seen escaping to Brazil.
  • Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: "This is her at 4 months, this is her first miniskirt, and what's this? Oh, right, this is her first fight with a 10-headed serpent."
  • Breaking the Fourth Wall: In the early seasons, there have been several nods to the show's claymation animation.
    • A variation occurred in the "Frankie Muniz vs. Robert Iler" bout, where Muniz kept talking to the camera a la Malcolm in the Middle... only to be called out on it by Iler mid-fight.
  • Breast Expansion: Dolly Parton was given special armor that enlarged her breasts on command to be used as weapons during her fight against Jennifer Lopez (who had similar armor equipped on her ass).
  • Bring My Brown Pants: Forewarned prior to Nick Diamond challenging Zatar the alien. Johnny tries to stop him by warning him that he has a spastic colon.
  • Bullying a Dragon:
    • Okay, when Deathmatch is holding an awards ceremony for the Most Dangerous and Entertaining Female of the Year, it is not a good idea to interrupt said ceremony, steal the trophy, brag about it to the crowd, and then insult the actual guest of honor, especially when said guest of honor is Lucy Lawless. However, Lisa "Left-Eye" Lopes was so full of herself after winning the main event, she did just that; Lucy's response was to cut her into quarters.
    • After reverting to his human form, The Wolfman tries to convince Mills Lane to give him the victory over Frankenstein's Monster because, being stitched together from corpses, the Monster was technically already dead to begin with. It almost works, but the Wolfman makes the mistake of rubbing it in the Monster's face, enraging it. Since the Wolfman could no longer use his wolf-like strength to fight back, the Monster was able to kill him easily.
  • Butt-Monkey: After the above-named Running Gag about Don King got stale, a very unlucky popcorn vendor took his place, killed or injured on numerous occasions, and even possessed by a demon once.
  • By Wall That Is Holey: The match between Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, and Lisa Kudrow saw the ring decorated like a sitcom set. When it collapses (killing the combatants), referee Mills Lane survives through this method.
  • Cain and Abel: Russell Simmons vs. Rev Run Rev defeats Simmons, Emilio Estevez vs. Charlie Sheen Sheen defeats Estevez, Mary Kate Olsen vs. Ashley Olsen The third Olsen twin defeats both, Ashley Judd vs. Wynonna Judd Wynnona defeats Ashley, Liam Gallagher vs. Noel Gallagher.
    • The latter had the completely off-the-wall ending of Gallagher the comedian running in with his Sledge-O-Matic and taking out both Gallagher brothers by himself.
  • Call-Back: At the end of the "Sex, Lugs, and Rock and Roll" episode, Nick falls off of the announcer's booth and appears to be unconscious. Johnny's reaction? "Nick! Oh no, not again!" note 
  • The Calls Are Coming from Inside the House: During the Neve Campbell vs. Sarah Michelle Gellar fight, Johnny and Nick receive an ominous phone call from a serial killer. They call him back, only to discover the call was coming from inside the arena. The phone call seemed to be coming from a platypus (who was mistaken for a man in a platypus costume), so Gellar and Campbell teamed up to beat him down. Turns out, the platypus was not the killer, and the real killer remained uncaught.
  • Canadian Equals Hockey Fan: In the fight between Alanis Morissette and Jewel, Jewel gets squished into the shape of a hockey puck, and Morisette's Canadian heritage manifests in her whacking Jewel into a light fixture, hockey-style.
  • The Can Kicked Him: How Bruce Springsteen wins his fight against James Gandolfini.
  • Car Fu: Andre Agassi steals Tiger Woods’ golf cart and uses it to run over not only Woods, but Agassi’s ex-wife Brooke Shields.
  • Cartwright Curse: Weaponized by Anna Nicole Smith. Since her last husband died shortly after marrying her, she finishes off her opponent, Sarah Ferguson, by marrying her, which causes Ferguson's heart to explode.
  • Catchphrase: Many characters have at least one; see the character sheet.
  • Celebrity Casualty: By the very nature of its premise, every episode ends with at least one instance of this.
  • Chained Heat: Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera get tied to each other's hair for their fight.
    • Also, Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert are tied to each other's thumbs.
  • Chef of Iron: Any time a famous chef makes it onto this show, they are portrayed this way. For example, in the fight between TV chefs Emeril Lagasse and the Two Fat Ladies, they take turns using their opponent's body parts as ingredients in a dish (for example, cutting off fingers to make literal "finger sandwiches"), and the fight ends with Emeril Lagasse getting thrown into an oven and cooked alive.
  • Chekhov's Gun: Missy Elliott's lollipops are constantly being swatted away seconds after she places them in her mouth. She eventually manages to use two of them to blind Gwen Stefani before decapitating her.
    • In the fight between Rev Run and Russell Simmons, Rev defeats Simmons by spin-kicking his head off his shoulders. Later on during the fight between Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom, the head (which is still alive) falls back into the ring, and the two duel while attempting to balance on it. (mimicking a scene from Pirates of the Caribbean).
  • Chekhov's Gunman: Quite a few.
    • The "No. 1 fan" from the beginning of "Fandemonium 2000" is the catalyst behind NSYNC and The Backstreet Boys being brought back to life for the main event.
    • After Lil' Jon wins his match by default thanks to his opponent (Lil' Kim) being in jail, he begins boasting about how he's the "King of the Lil' People". Then, Lil' Wayne and Lil' Bow Wow (who won the previous two bouts) come back to try and kick his ass.
    • The Hanson kids return and attempt to do to Manson what he did to them and The Spice Girls in an earlier episode. Things go awry when one of the kids loses control of a chainsaw.
  • Chekhov's Skill: The Tahitian Skeleton-Pull of Death.
  • Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Marv Albert appeared in the "Deathbowl '98" pilot and the first episode of the series as a correspondent. However, he was never seen again after the Jim Carrey vs. Mariah Carey fight, as he suddenly vanished without explanation.
  • The City vs. the Country: The gist of the Lauryn Hill vs. Shania Twain fight. To further drive this point home, half the ring is decorated like a city street corner, and the other half is decorated like a farm.
  • Claymation: If the fact the opening disclaimer of every episode ends with "Anyway, IT'S JUST CLAY!" wasn't a tip-off for you...
  • Clipped-Wing Angel: Michael Jackson used his Moonwalker Magic to transform into an animal in a last ditch effort to defeat Madonna. He ended up as a hamster that Madonna easily kicked into the acid.
  • Combining Mecha: During their fight with N Sync, the Backstreet Boys combine into a gigantic "Backstreet Beast".
  • Comically Oversized Butt: One match featured a fight between Dolly Parton and Jennifer Lopez in which they were fitted with experimental suits that weaponized their most famous assets, and thus Parton ended up with weaponized boobs while J-Lo got a weaponized ass.
  • Crack Defeat: Gandhi over Genghis Khan, and David Spade over Steven Seagal.
  • Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass:
    • Nick Diamond may not be the smartest tool in the shed, but try to take over the world... or try to take his job by claiming he and Johnny are dead...
    • Pamela Anderson's first fight kinda went like this. She wasn't a moron, but her opponent, RuPaul, seemed to have a major strength advantage over Pam. Then, when RuPaul thought it was a good idea to flirt with Pam's husband at the time, Tommy Lee, Pam quickly brought her A-game, and proceeded to beat RuPaul easily.
    • During the fight between Quentin Tarantino and Spike Lee, guest referee Woody Allen is constantly being used as a weapon by both of them. When Sun Yi tells him she won't give him loving if he doesn't start fighting back, Allen quickly dispatches both fighters.
    • In their tag-team match against Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones, it seems Gillian Anderson has no sympathy for her co-star getting his ass handed to him and would rather take a call from her cell phone. It isn't until David Duchovny actually begs her for help that she steps up and beats Tommy back into his corner with minimal effort.
  • Cruel and Unusual Death: The loser of the fight often suffers this. Some examples include getting cut up into paper dolls, getting run over by a steamroller, and swallowing helium and then getting popped.
  • Curb-Stomp Battle:
    • The Loch Ness Monster vs. Bigfoot. Nessie wins in seconds. Everyone present was expecting the longest, most epic fight in the history of Celebrity Deathmatch, with Stone Cold Steve Austin calling it "a six-second suckfest".
    • Same with the season 5's rematch of Shaquille O'Neal vs. Kobe Bryant. Shaq ends the fight early by lifting and choking Kobe with one hand and then tearing his head off with the other.
    • Pamela Anderson's third fight can only be described as this since not only was she kicking the crap out of her opponent, he didn't really get to fight back, the only thing he really did was say things that pissed her off.
    • Gandhi vs. Genghis Khan. Genghis Khan fails to get in a single hit.
    • Subverted in David Spade vs. Steven Seagal. Spade only gets in one hit... the winning one.
      • A similar thing happens in Steve Irwin vs. Medusa where Steve doesn't even try to fight until he (accidentally) rips Medusa's head off.
    • Andre Agassi vs. Tiger Woods. Tiger never gets any offense in.
    • Cameron Diaz vs. Meryl Streep is originally intended to be a staged performance with Diaz pretending to kill Streep. However, Streep ends up taking her role too seriously and wipes the floor with Diaz.
    • Richard Simmons vs. Billy Blanks. Simmons only gets one hit, which does no damage, and all his attempts end up backfiring on him.
    • Subverted in the Julia and Eric Roberts vs. Marie and Donny Osmond fight. Julia and Eric get absolutely no offense in, and yet they still win the match when Marie and Donny chew each other's heads off.
  • Cut-and-Paste Note: Johnny and Nick get one during the episode where Albert Einstein's brain goes missing.
  • Cyborg: Shannen Doherty becomes one during her fight against Halle Berry, when a smart car engine falls on her head and fuses with her brain.
    • Midway through their fight, Sylvester Stallone manages to headbutt Arnold Schwarzenegger, causing half of his face to peel off and reveal he is one of these (as a shout-out to his role in The Terminator).
    • In the video game, Carmen Electra is revealed as one after she sustains enough damage.
  • Dark Horse Victory: In the middle of the Hansen vs. the Spice Girls fight, the light rigging is cut, killing everyone in the ring. It's revealed that Marilyn Manson was the one responsible, causing him to win the fight.
  • David Versus Goliath: David Spade vs. Steven Seagal; Chris Rock versus The Rock.
    • It's actually invoked and literalized in the case of Spade vs. Seagal. Before the match starts, Nick says, "Their names are David and Steven, but they might as well be David and Goliath." Seagal, of course, dominates the fight. He throws Spade out to the floor by his underwear, where he finds Chicago Bulls basketball star Scottie Pippen sitting in the front row. Spade borrows one of Pippen's championship rings and, using his underwear as a slingshot, launches the ring right through Seagal's head. When referee Mills Lane asks if Seagal is ok, he says, "Yeah, sure, Grandpa," and collapses face first on to the mat. This is topped off by Spade telling Seagal that the planned sequel to Hard to Kill had been cancelled.
    • Referenced in the Leonardo DiCaprio vs. Jack Nicholson fight. When DiCaprio seemingly won, Johnny asked "Has David slain Goliath?"
    • The-then 12-year old Haley Joel Osment vs. Macaulay Culkin, who was 20! Despite being somewhat Lighter and Softer than usual, with the gimmick being that the match was set in a playground like a schoolyard bully fight, it was still a Deathmatch and required a child to fight an adult. Osment managed to win with the help of the ghosts of former Deathmatch competitors who tore Culkin limb from limb at the end, but it was a close call, since he wasn't a physical match against Culkin at ALL.
  • Deadly Game: The entire premise.
    • Also in a more specific example would be the Survivor special, were various contestants were voted into the fight by the audience.
    • Don't forget about the "fight" between Pat Sajak and Alex Trebek, which saw the two competing against each other in a brutal game show that combined elements from both of their respective shows.
    • And, of course, the Who Wants to be a Dead Game Show Host game, played by Chuck Woolery and Regis Philbin.
    • While their fight wasn't exclusively based on either of their shows, Bob Barker and Anne Robinson both utilize their respective shows to inflict pain on each other - Barker sustains extensive facial injury for every question he gets wrong, and Robinson's broken leg is the basis of a guessing game.
    • Ben Stein turns his fight against Johnny Knoxville into one of these.
  • Deadly Rotary Fan: "Fandemonium I" features a giant killer fan wheel during the Adam Sandler vs. Chris Rock fight.
  • Deal with the Devil: Nick ends up resorting to making a pact with Satan to bring NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys back to life after they were chosen to fight each other by the fans, but had already been killed in previous fights. Satan is already sick of them and only demands one other soul in exchange, which ends up being the Contest Winner Cameo.
  • Death Dealer: In her battle against John Edward, Miss Cleo attacks him by throwing tarot cards at him.
  • Death by Irony / Karmic Death:
    • At the end of the Derek Jeter / John Rocker fight, Jeter offs Rocker by shocking him with a DieHard battery. Prior to this fight, Rocker became infamous for a rant he made against the people of New York City. After his death via electrocution, what does Rocker's charred corpse resemble? The Statue of Liberty!
    • At the end of the Dave Thomas vs. Colonel Sanders fight, Sanders' headless body collapses into and rolls around in a bowl of flour, a bowl of egg wash, and a bowl of bread crumbs, and then Thomas kicks him into a deep-frier, where his body is fried. This is the exact process by which fried chicken is made.
  • Demonic Possession: A demon known as Captain Doody possesses Nick's son in the Halloween episode, and The Undertaker challenges him to a deathmatch for Nick Jr.'s soul.
  • Destructive Saviour: The Loch Ness Monster briefly wins the crowd when, during its post-match rampage, it kills Don King.
    Mike Tyson: I'm fwee! I'm fwee! The King is dead! Long live the monster!
  • Do Not Call Me Mark: On an episode where The Undertaker (voiced by him) fought a demon named Captain Doody note , Doody taunted him by calling him by his real name, Mark (Calaway).
    • Captain Doody!
  • Disproportionate Retribution: While this does seem to be a staple in this reality (pretty much any excuse for wanting someone dead is legitimate) one case that stands out is the Halloween Episode where Stacy Cornbred came back from the dead leading a zombie horde, intent on killing Debbie because she "stole her job". You have to take Debbie's side with this one; that was not her fault.
  • Dreadful Musician: In the Ricky Martin vs. William Hung fight, William Hung grabs a microphone and starts singing, which causes Ricky Martin's ears to bleed. Johnny compares Hung's singing to "a thousand fingers simultaneously scratching a thousand chalkboards". Subverted in that, after getting choked by Ricky Martin, Hung's voice becomes smoother and more pleasant.
  • Dude Looks Like a Lady: Boy George obviously. In the '80s Flashback episode, he's in a match with Miami Vice star Don Johnson because he somehow didn't know that B.G. is actually a man, and came within seconds of having sex with him.
  • The Easy Way or the Hard Way: At one point during his fight with Ernest Hemingway, Mankind winds up accidentally getting his neck wrapped up in the ring ropes, putting himself at risk of choking himself to death. Hemingway points out that at this point, the fight can only end thusly: The easy way, or the Hemingway. Mankind's response? All but scalping himself by forcing himself out of the ropes.
  • Edible Bludgeon: In her battle with her sister Ashley, Wynonna Judd uses a licorice whip as... well, a whip.
  • Epic Fail:
    • Nick's attempt to connect Jesse Ventura to Kevin Bacon resulting in a long roundabout which results in linking Ventura... with Ventura note .
    • Another EF moment by Nick, in the "Sex, Lugs and, Rock N' Roll" episode, he tries to show Johnny his skill at smashing a soda can with his head which he learned in college... Except he forgot that you're supposed to use an aluminium can, and ends up nearly cracking his head open with a glass bottle.
    • Pamela Anderson's first attack against Ru Paul was to kick RuPaul in the groin... only for RuPaul to No-Sell it by revealing he was wearing steel-plated underwear. Actually, the first half of that fight was an epic fail for Pam, but when she got her second wind, Pamela went from busty damsel / wimp to busty badass.
    • During the Three Stooges vs. Three Tenors fight, Larry Fine got the idea to de-age himself back to his prime, and ended up de-aging himself to a sperm cell because he accidentally set the year too low. Subverted in that he still somehow managed to help Curly Howard kill the two remaining Tenors by slamming himself into Luciano Pavarotti's eye.
    • Michael Jackson attempts to transform into a vicious animal during his fight with Madonna, only for the attempt to backfire and transform him into a hamster that she easily kills.
  • "Eureka!" Moment: Harrison Ford only got the idea of how to defeat Samuel L. Jackson when the latter said Ford should've stuck with carpentry.
  • Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: In the match between LeAnn Rimes and Ol' Dirty Bastard, ODB becomes furious and gets a serious second wind after Rimes insults his mother, eventually beating Rimes to a bloody pulp. (Of course, the general theme of the match is to suggest that he isn't as "bad" as his reputation makes him out to be... Rimes, on the other hand...)
  • Everyone Has Standards:
    • Johnny and Nick believe that killing should be allowed in the Deathmatch Ring only!
    • Also, while they were okay with most forms of torture or gruesome death, they felt that Ozzy Osbourne making Rob Zombie give him a pedicure crossed the line. (Mills was okay with it, however.)
    • Even Mills Lane himself thought James Van Der Beek had crossed the line by desecrating the flag in order to beat Saddam Hussein.
    • Barring exceptional circumstances such as specialty matches, firearms are expressly forbidden in the ring, and Mills Lane will immediately confiscate them, as experienced by Dennis Franz and Charlton Heston.
    • Jamie Kennedy explains this to Ali G in order to kill him.
  • Everything's Deader with Zombies:
    • The second Halloween episode had, among other things, zombies laying siege to the arena, led by the zombified corpse of the show's first interviewer, Stacy Cornbred, looking to get her job back by any means necessary.
    • Ozzy Osbourne turned Rob Zombie into his zombie slave during the match.
  • Evil Chef: Beni Trauma, one of the Super Freaks. His opponent was another Super Freak named Potato Khan, a living potato. Actually, he may not have been completely evil. He was awfully nice to a kid in the audience.
  • Eviler than Thou: Ozzy Osbourne had this attitude towards Rob Zombie in their match, and he pretty much proved it.
  • Exactly What It Says on the Tin:
    Morello: "Yo, when you said we were fighting "the Machine", we thought you were talking about, like, capitalist oppression or something!"
    de la Rocha: "Yeah, we're monarchists!"
    Morello: "Marxists, dude."
    de la Rocha: "Whatever, we don't wanna fight no crazy robot!"
    Mills Lane: "You signed on the dotted line, son!"
  • Excalibur in the Stone: During the fight between Elton John and Ozzy Osbourne (which was released shortly after Elton John was knighted), Queen Elizabeth throws Excalibur into the ring, and Johnny Gomez establishes that only a true knight can pull the sword out of the stone. Elton can't pull it out, and the Queen says "What kind of knight are you?".
  • Exploding Cigar: Bill Clinton shoves one into Kenneth Starr's mouth and lights it as an attack.
  • Explosive Stupidity: Jessica Simpson attempts to kill Nick Lachey by throwing a grenade at him, but is absent-minded enough to forget to remove the pin. An enraged Lachey takes it upon himself to show her exactly how you're supposed to detonate a grenade... And boom goes the dynami- er, grenade.
  • Eye Scream: You would be impressed with the fact this occurs during this show more than once.
  • Fake a Fight: At least a couple of times competitors try to pull this off. Of course, since you can't fake hacking each other to death, the officials don't buy it and use threats to motivate them into fighting proper.
  • The Fake Cutie: LeAnn Rimes. She may seem like a kindhearted and innocent country singer, with her young age, blonde hair, Girlish Pigtails, sweet smile, and love of God and her country. However, beneath that sweet exterior lies a cranky personality, a foul mouth, and a nasty smoking habit.
  • Fake High: Nick Diamond gets some hemp clothing from Woody Harrelson; unfortunately, the clothes catch fire, and after inadvertently getting a face full of smoke, Nick spends the rest of the episode stoned out of his gourd. Hemp, of course, while being a variety of the cannabis sativa plant species, differs from marijuana in that it does not contain THCnote , and when Harrelson points this out at the end of the episode, Nick is very embarrassed (he is naked and playing the bongos at this point).
  • Faking the Dead:
    • At first, it seems like Kristin Davis was killed by Kim Cattrall's poison in the four-way "Sex and the City" fight, only to pop up near the end to finish Cattrall off (the only one left alive), revealing she had never ingested said poison:
      Davis: Unlike [Cattrall], I never swallow!
    • Aretha Franklin uses this tactic to win her fight against Barbra Streisand after placing a diseased rat in a nearby bucket of water. She plays dead, tricking an exhausted Streisand into drinking from the bucket and contracting the bubonic plague.
    • Don King tries to pull this off during his match against Donald Trump. However, Mills sees through his poorly-acted "death", and then becomes averted seconds later when Trump actually does kill him.
    • A variation: Sam Donaldson claimed Nick and Johnny died in the arena explosion as a means of taking over the show in "A Celebrity Deathmatch Special Report". In reality, Johnny was being rushed to the hospital via ambulance with Nick at his side.
    • Mischa Barton pulls this off against Kristin Cavallari mid-way through the fight... she promptly gets her ass kicked.
  • Fanservice: Frequently, and often lampshaded.
  • Fan Disservice: There's a lot of this too, and the show often has both Fanservice and Fan Disservice in the same fight.
    • Supermodels Rebecca Romijn and Naomi Campbell have a match in their underwear... which ends with Naomi coughing up her own stomach and spraying Rebecca with lethal stomach acid, causing her to melt down into a flesh-colored puddle of goop with only her bra and panties remaining.
    • The Melissa Joan Hart / Alyssa Milano fight starts out as fanservice, with Johnny and Nick stating it was to see who was TV's hottest witch. Alyssa is decked out in a revealing leather outfit and Melissa is wearing a red bikini. Then they start casting spells on each other that turn them into ugly, stereotypical wicked witches.
  • Fanservice Pack: In the earlier seasons, Pamela Anderson's breasts were more like the real Pamela's, but for the season 5 redesign they became much larger (which she uses to beat Tommy Lee to death).
  • Fartillery: Naturally, this is Howard Stern's weapon. But it doesn't work as well the second time...
    • Whoopi Goldberg also uses this in order to get a confession out of Claire Danes.
    • A variant: J. K. Rowling places a curse on Stephen King that causes blue flames to erupt from his bum, in the form of flatulence. It doesn't take long for King to use this to his advantage.
  • Fighting Irish: Referenced. During Bono's fight with Fabio and Yoko Ono, Johnny says Bono's "Irish temper is flaring".
  • Fighting Series: Nothing but celebrities beating each other up.
  • Finger Framing: Oliver Stone and Martin Scorsese do this at the beginning of their fight.
  • Fire-Breathing Diner: During the fight between Flea and Kenny G, Flea eats some literal "red hot chili peppers", which make him blast flames from his mouth at Kenny G.
  • Flanderization: Nick's Cloud Cuckoolander / loser status is played up considerably more in the revival. The celebrities as a whole are also portrayed much less sympathetically than in earlier seasons, with Take Thats which are far more blatant and oftentimes border on being mean-spirited, sometimes to the point that their faults are all that is seen on the show.
    • In layman's terms, the revival is this to the original show.
  • Flechette Storm:
    • In the "George Washington vs. Abe Lincoln" battle, one of Washington's attacks is throwing razor-sharp coins.
    • In the "Li'l Kim vs. Little Richard" fight, Li'l Kim throws pasties at Little Richard, which double as throwing stars.
  • The Fool: How Sherlock Holmes is portrayed in his match with Jack the Ripper.
  • Forgot About His Powers: In "Fandemonium 2000", Nick had to figure out a way to bring back both the Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC who had died in a previous fights (against the Beastie Boys and KISS, respectively)... he completely forgets that he has access to a Time Machine that has brought lots of previously dead celebrities beforehand.
    • Even better? This is never pointed out.
  • For Halloween, I Am Going as Myself: A Fan Convention variant. The episode "Deathcon 2001" takes place at a sci-fi convention, where, of course, tons of people are in Cosplay. This allows Zatar the Alien to sneak into the Deathmatch crowd unnoticed, and he even gets complimented on his "costume".
  • Four-Fingered Hands: All of the characters. "Stone Cold" Steve Austin even once mentioned in an interview that the only thing he didn't like about his animated alter ego was that it only had four fingers and therefore didn't have a middle finger.
  • Funny Background Event: At the very beginning of the Jamie Kennedy vs. Ali G fight. As Ali G tosses his script away, Mills Lane is hit in the head with it in the background and falls over the ropes. Blink, and you'll miss it.
  • Fun with Acronyms:
    • The Moral Guardians, the B.O.O.B. (Broadcasters Opposing Offensive Behavior).
    • MTV got this treatment when it was referred to as More Television Violence in one episode.

     G-M 
  • Gadgeteer Genius: "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, who, during the course of the show, has built a time machine, multiple Humongous Mecha, an enlarging ray, and genetically engineered mutant fighters made from the DNA of dead celebrities.
  • Gainax Ending: "Willie Nelson vs. Tony Bennett" ends with Nelson taking off his bandana to reveal a third eye, which causes Bennett to disintegrate. Neither Johnny, Nick, nor Mills were sure what exactly happened.
    • "Brad Pitt vs. Keanu Reeves" has Brad Pitt turn into a being of pure energy, become one with The Matrix, get inside Keanu's brain, make his head explode, then go back into the computer and blow himself up.
    • "Celine Dion vs. Keith Flint" ends with Dion eating Flint's head, then tearing off her skin to reveal that she's actually being controlled by an alien, who runs off into the audience, possesses Don King, and announces his plan to take over the world.
  • Gaining the Will to Kill: Spoofed in two episodes:
  • Gassy Scare: In the episode "The Prophecy," Mills Lane starts to experience symptoms that are a prelude to spontaneous combustion, much to the horror of the others. Moments later, however, Mills lets out a burp, revealing that it was just gas brought on by egg salad.
  • Gemstone Assault: During the fight between Jenna Elfman and Kathy Griffin, Jenna uses healing crystals to impale Kathy.
  • Genre Blindness: Parodied during the Jerry Seinfeld vs. Tim Allen match. After Jason Alexander, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Michael Richards have turned heel on Jerry for ending the show, Johnny says, "We wrestling announcers are supposed to be so perceptive."
  • Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Invoked/discussed by "Stone Cold" Steve Austin in his "Fighter Facts" for the Hasselhoff vs. John Tesh fight, with a Take That! as a bonus:
    Austin: "Tesh does some tinky-tink piano music, and Hasselhoff is a big rock star over in Krautland. The one thing they have in common is, their music sucks! You've just heard the Fighter Facts, and that's the bottom line, 'cause Stone Cold said so!"
  • Gilligan Cut: When using the Time Machine to retrieve Genghis Khan and Mahatma Gandhi, the machine malfunctions, prompting Nick & Johnny to assure the viewers that resident scientist Steve Austin will take care of everything. Cut to Austin kicking the time machine — "Ah, stupid piece of crap!"
  • Glass-Shattering Sound: Mariah Carey finishes off her opponent Jim Carrey by singing a high note that causes glass to break, dogs to howl, Johnny's ears to start bleeding, and Jim Carrey's head to explode.
  • Gold Digger:
    • Anna Nicole Smith. She claims to need a man who can support her hedonistic lifestyle (hence why she married a wealthy old man who died two years later), and is even able to smell billionaires from several miles away. This actually helps the CDM crew locate Ted Turner, who stole a rare videotape from them.
    • Kevin Federline is a male example, as he's attracted to, and expresses desire to marry, anyone who has a lot of money. In fact, during his fight with Justin Timberlake, the latter manages to distract him by pulling out his wallet and waving it around. He even brags about his "gold-digging skills" during the match.
  • Gorn: Oh, you have no idea.
    • Most prevalent during Seasons 5 and 6.
  • Grand Theft Me: After she beats Helen Hunt, Leelee Sobieski steals Helen's identity so she can keep her far better career, she even tears the skin off Helen's hands and wears them like gloves so she can use Helen's fingerprints for confirmation.
  • Grievous Harm with a Body:
  • Groin Attack: It's to be expected, really.
    • Gillian Anderson does this repeatedly to Tommy Lee Jones, after she is tagged into the match.
    • Let's not forget the "Bob Barker vs. Anne Robinson" fight. Say it with us now:
      Nick: Holy mother of no children! He took her ovaries!
    • Mariah Carey gave Jim Carrey a very brutal one.
    • Tina Wesson basically wins the Survivor royal-rumble match by throwing Richard Hatch full-force into a brick wall by his genitals.
    • Verne Troyer receives a rather nasty one involving a sledgehammer.
  • Halloween Episode: Two of them — one from Season 2 and another from Season 3.
    • The first one was fairly standard as far as CDM episodes go, aside from Nicky Jr. getting possessed by a demon and having to have the demon beat out of him by The Undertaker. Johnny and Nick were dressed up in Halloween costumes (Johnny as a wizard and Nick as a sailor), one of the fights was between two classic monsters (Frankenstein's Monster and The Wolfman), and one of the fights (between KISS and N Sync) was billed as "the cruelest costume contest ever" with KISS wearing their iconic costumes and NSYNC wearing cliché Halloween costumes like a clown, a pirate, a hobo, and a 2-person horse costume.
    • The second was an Episode of the Dead revolving around zombies attacking the arena — led by an undead Stacy Cornbred with a grudge against Debbie.
  • Handwave: An in-universe example for the "Bill Gates vs. Michael Flatley" bout, which gets labeled "Battle of the Clerical Error", since the two had no prior rivalry.
    Johnny: I've just received confirmation as to why the fighters in our next bout are here tonight.
    Nick: And why is that?
    Johnny: Nick, it seems to have been a clerical error.
    Nick: That's it?! No old grudges? No bitter rivalry?
    Johnny: (glances down at the paper he was handed) Just a bug in the Deathmatch software.
  • Hammerspace Hair: As Diana Ross is arriving in the ring for her fight with Whitney Houston, security guards discover several weapons hidden in her afro.
  • Harsher in Hindsight: In-Universe, in the "Dean Martin vs. Jerry Lewis" fightnote , Nick barely avoided getting hit by Jerry Lewis, who was knocked out of the ring. Nick's response?
    Nick: We've had a lot of close calls here on "Celebrity Deathmatch", but it's going to take a lot more than a flying celebrity to take me out!"
    *cut back to present day Johnny watching the match, on the verge of tears*
    • Another In-Universe example in "O. J. Simpson vs. Joe Namath", a battle filmed in 1973, when OJ was still a football player, was full of moments alluding to his eventual murder trial, including describing OJ as "a man who can do no wrong", OJ wanting to fight with (boxing) gloves and finding they don't fit, Johnny mentioning that OJ knows his way with sharp objects, and Johnny saying OJ "[is] never gonna murder two innocent people and then claim he was in Chicago". However, this reaches the pinnacle after OJ won: after being declared the winner, OJ begins freaking out for... some reason, adamantly stating that he wasn't the winner of the fight, and vowing to find the real winner.
    • In yet another case of this trope from the "CDM Vault", there's the "Carroll O'Connor vs. Sherman Hemsley" fight from the "Family Night '77" episode note , near the start, we see Nick getting into a small fight with his wife, who threatens to leave him one day. Earlier, in the actual episode proper, she tells Nick that she's divorcing him so she can be with David Letterman.
  • Hate Sink: Tally Wong seems to be this, due to her Jerkass behaviour. Not even Debbie got the amount of hate Tally received!
  • Heal It with Booze: In one match, Sylvester Stallone cauterised a wound by pouring alcohol on it and then lighting it on fire, causing the judges to reverse their opinions about him not being a badass.
  • Heal It With Fire: One match has Sylvester Stallone blowing up a keg of gunpowder to cauterize a wound given to him by Arnold Schwarzenegger.
  • Heel–Face Turn: The Undertaker actually plays the hero's role the time he appears, despite his well-known reputation for being evil in the WWF. (He does suggest at first that it's a case of Eviler than Thou, but his actions say otherwise.)
    • Actually, while Undertaker may have been a heel at the time of his CDM appearance, he's been a face for most of his WWF/E career.
  • Heroic BSoD: Steve Irwin has one after he accidentally kills Medusa during their fight.
  • Heroic Second Wind: A common theme is that one combatant will be beaten up without getting a hit in, then make a comeback at the very end of the fight.
  • Hey, That's My Line!: Happens twice in the Mills Lane / Judge Judy fight, with the latter stealing the former's "Let's get it on!" and "I'll allow it!" Catchphrases.
  • Historical Character Confusion: Debbie does this in one episode, mistakenly crediting Albert Einstein with Thomas Edison's inventions.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: Very common.
    • Charlton Heston chopping down the tower to kill Russell Crowe ends up causing his own death.
    • While aiming for Chuck Berry's berries, James Brown's laser shoes get deflected by Chuck's ring, causing him to get crushed my a overhead light. (Johnny quotes the exact Trope name.)
      Nick Diamond: Hoist on his own petard? Well I don't think the audience knows what "petard" means. 'Cause I sure don't.
    • Chris Kirkpatrick was killed at the end of the "*NSYNC vs. KISS" fight when Gene Simmons crushed him thanks to Ace Frehley popping the balloons that lifted Gene to the ceiling. The very same balloons Chis used on him earlier in the fight.
    • Bill Gates ultimately was killed by his own Robotic Michael Flatley after he used it to kill the human version.
    • David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson defeat Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones in the Men in Black vs. The X-Files match, despite the [MIBs] dominating the action while [David rambles on about a conspiracy, after the MIBs accidentally point their BFG the wrong way and fire.
    • Michael Jackson tries to use "Moonwalker Magic" to transform into a deadly creature, but it doesn't work, and instead he transforms into a hamster, making an easy kill for Madonna.
    • David Copperfield tries to one-up David Blaine by levitating over a pit of piranhas, but he loses concentration and falls in.
    • Steven Spielberg loses in his match with Alfred Hitchcock, despite his opponent barely even fighting, when the spirits from the Ark of the Covenant turn on him because he didn't pay them for their appearance in Raiders of the Lost Ark (And left them out of The Temple of Doom).
    • Jack the Ripper is killed by a barely aware Sherlock Holmes when the latter zips up the former's knife-lined coat.
    • In "Cousin Grimm vs. Potato Khan", Cousin Grimm seems to win by grating his opponent. However, Potato Khan's grated remains are shown to each still be alive, and they each regenerate into smaller Potato Khans small enough to crawl inside his brain and make him kill himself.
  • Hot Skitty-on-Wailord Action: Fran Drescher's voice attracts the attention of the Loch Ness Monster (who considers it a mating call). He pursues her offscreen, and she returns later riding on his back and looking very satisfied.
  • Hot Witch:
    • The fight between Melissa Joan Hart and Alyssa Milano has them dueling with magic while wearing sexy outfits. As the magic takes its toll, though, it turns into a subversion, with both of them turned into grotesque Wicked Witch stereotypes (while still wearing their sexy outfits) as a result.
    • The same subversion happens in the J. K. Rowling vs. Stephen King fight. She wears a wizard hat and at one point uses Harry Potter's flying broom, but after getting one of King's fiery farts (that she herself made possible with her magic wand) in her face, she takes on a grotesque appearance with burnt skin and singed hair.
  • Humongous Mecha: Used in the Backstreet Boys vs. Beastie Boys match, and the blink-182 vs. 98 Degrees match.
  • Hurricane of Puns: Whether it's Nick and Johnny's commentary or the celebs themselves trash talking, this show is lousy with puns. Here's an example from the Al Gore / Weird Al match:
    Johnny: Weird Al created an Album that poked fun at Al Gore. The pallid politician was left with no Alternative but to declare an Al-out war against the Prince of Parody.
    Nick: I guess these two are Aligned by their mutual hatred!
    Johnny: Al say!
    • Later, when Gore is hit hard enough to force a large brown object out of his butt:
    Nick: Did Al Gore just pass a bill, Johnny?
    Johnny: No, Nick, it seems to be some kind of log.
    Nick: That's no log! It's the Executive Branch!
  • Hypnotic Eyes: Fabio apparently has this power, which he uses to seduce Yoko Ono and force her to do his bidding in the "Bono vs. Fabio vs. Yoko Ono" fight.
  • Ice-Cream Koan: Nick Diamond delivers one at the end of the Jimi Hendrix vs. Lenny Kravitz fight.
    Nick: Castles made of sand melt into the sea... eventually.
  • Identical Stranger:
    • Helen Hunt vs. Leelee Sobieski. After winning the fight, Leelee has no trouble convincing everyone that she's Helen Hunt, going so far as to peel off the real Helen Hunt's hands and wear them as gloves, in case someone would check her for fingerprints. Let's repeat that everyone falls for her act, despite her doing this in full view of absolutely everyone. Never mind that they wore dresses of different colors (Helen was wearing black, while Leelee was wearing white).
    • This was done earlier in the Britney Spears vs. Christina Aguilera fight (who did wear identical outfits, not helping matters), to the point where they were unable to determine who won. As the fight progressed, it became increasingly hard to tell the two apart, forcing Mills Lane to mark Britney with a rubber stamp. The fight ended with the two of them literally tearing each other apart, leaving only one moving arm. Noah Wyle tried to prove who it was, but Debbie Matenopoulos pointed out that he had no real knowledge on Medicine to determine whose arm that was.
    • Later, we had Lisa Ling vs. Lucy Liu, which was built on the premise of the two of them looking extremely similar and having similar names. Further complicating matters is the fact that Lucy Liu has played a character called Ling, so "Ling" could refer to either one. Throughout the fight, Nick and Johnny were very confused as to who was who.
    • Much later, Jake Gyllenhaal vs. Tobey Maguire was built on the premise that the two of them looked alike. Maguire even says during the fight that the only reason Gyllenhaal has a career is because he looks like Maguire. It even reaches the point where, when Gyllenhaal commands Doctor Octopus to attack Maguire, he attacks Gyllenhaal instead.
  • Idiot Ball: During the Pink vs. Mandy Moore fight, normally sweet girl Mandy Moore finally snaps, fashioning a giant lollipop into a shiv and looks ready to kill Pink, when Pink instead talks her off the ledge and convinces her to embrace being a good girl and hand her the shiv. Mandy does … only for Pink to remark she did not realize Mandy could be that stupid before killing her with the same lollipop shiv.
  • If You Die, I Call Your Stuff: Stacy Cornbred had been dead for all of ten seconds before Nick called "dibs" on her parking space. (In fact, whether anyone in-universe genuinely cared about what happened to her at all is questionable, which is somewhat surprising, as there had never been any outward signs of dislike for her — unlike the later case with both her successors, where that was obvious.)
  • I Know Madden Kombat: Naturally, whenever a famous sports star is featured in a battle, they tend to fight using equipment and moves from the sport they play. For example, in the Michael Jordan vs. Dennis Rodman fight, Jordan shoves a basketball down Rodman's throat, dribbles him like a basketball, and dunks him into a trash can.
  • I'm a Humanitarian: So many examples:
    • In the fight between Emeril Lagasse and the Two Fat Ladies, the contestants take their turns mutilating the enemy and using said part to make a dish for Mills Lane, who tries it without any hesitation. (Johnny even goes so far as to suggest to the viewers to write the recipe down!) While he hates the first three dishes he's served (literal finger sandwiches, a "leg nog" beverage and human kidney pie), he loves the winning dish, which is Emeril Lagasse cooked alive like a turkey.
    • The whole idea of the match between Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster was for the two combatants to fight by eating each other. (First they fasted for two weeks, then for the fight itself, they wore edible clothing made from meat and were covered with basting glaze.) Hopkins was clearly channeling Hannibal Lector in this one.
    • In the fight between Michael Douglas and Martin Sheen ("Best Actor Who Played the President") Douglas tried to eat Sheen, making a Black Comedy variant of Gordon Gekko's catchphrase.
    • The fight between Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen was interrupted by their much-rumored third sister who killed and savagely ate both of them (called "cute and cannibalistic by Nick and Johnny.
    • In the Survivor royal-rumble match, Richard Hatch eats most of the competitors before they were even voted to enter the match.
    • Jon Stewart momentarily gets distracted during his fight and starts chewing on the bone from Tina Fey's leg.
  • I'm Melting!: In the battle between Rebecca Romijn-Stamos and Naomi Campbell, Naomi shoots her own stomach acid at Rebecca, causing Rebecca to melt into a puddle.
  • Improbable Weapon User: Man, where to start? Some of the most unlikely things have been used as weapons on this show, which is sometimes the whole point. In the second match using the Dome of Devastation, Nick and Johnny "cleaned out the garage" and put everything on the Dome for the two fighters to use, and in the third match using it they did something similar with a collection of musical instruments.
    • In the Joe Pesci vs. Napoléon Bonaparte fight, each fighter used a chest full of toys as weapons.
    • Martha Stewart defeated Sandra Bernhard by glue-gunning her to the mat.
    • Other unlikely armaments include a milking machine, live animals (including ones that seem harmless, like chickens), an extendable lead pipe, and in the Hitchcock/Spielberg fight, the Ark of the Covenant!
  • Inflating Body Gag: In the episode “A Celebrity Deathmatch Special Report”, Keri Russell swallows a helium tank, inflates, flies up and explodes from the heat from the lights, taking the stadium and most people present with her. There's Lampshade Hanging that she shouldn't have exploded since helium is inert, but not that fact she shouldn't have been able to float even by All Balloons Have Helium logic since the tank which wasn't airborne was still inside her.
  • The Ingenue: Brandy is portrayed this way. She owns several teddy bears, compliments her opponent’s fashion sense even while fighting her, and, when informed that she will be fighting Courtney Love to the death, doesn’t know what death is. Johnny calls her a “sweet kid” and wonders why anyone would like to kill her. In fact, in the fight proper, she doesn’t even harm Courtney Love directly and only ends up the winner because she gave Courtney a baby bear as a gift, whose mother then showed up and mauled Courtney to death.
  • Instrument of Murder: In the battle between KISS and *NSYNC, Ace Frehley uses his guitar to shoot laser beams (in addition to using it as a battering weapon).
  • In the Style of:
    • For the Brad Pitt vs. Keanu Reeves fight, Nick "took a page right out of The Matrix" and implemented a virtual reality machine to spice things up a bit.
    • The Bryant Gumbel vs. Katie Couric fight acts like a twisted episode of "The Today Show" (set and all).
    • The David Hasselhoff vs. John Tesh match had the ring set up like a beach a la Baywatch, with KITT's voice and brain now in a dune buggy.
    • The fight between Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, and Lisa Kudrow takes place on a sitcom set heavily reminiscent of the Friends one, complete with the theme playing in the background.
  • In Medias Res: "A Celebrity Deathmatch Special Report" had a short version of it: The episode opens after the arena had blown up. We ultimately learn how thanks to Sam Donaldson playing the footage of the "Katie Holmes vs. Keri Russell" fight during which the explosion took place.
  • Innocent Innuendo: The bread and butter of the four-way "Sex and the City" fight. Ultimately cast aside when comically oversized vibrators are brought into the fray.
  • Is This Thing Still On?: Said verbatim: In "Presented by Big Bull Beer", the outcome of the main event fight between Leonardo DiCaprio and Jack Nicholson note  causes the head of Big Bull Beer to end their sponsorship with Celebrity Deathmatch (Nick and Johnny had been promoting the beer throughout the show). After they think the taping is over, Johnny and Nick lament the outcome... then begin mocking how crappy the beer is. After a good laugh, Johnny notices that one camera is still taping. Cut to credits.
  • Intimate Lotion Application: In "Nicky Jr.'s Birthday", Debbie interviews Anna Kournikova in the locker room while she's wearing nothing but a towel, and at the end Anna all but demands Debbie help her rub lotion all over her body, apparently just to provide In-Universe fanservice to the show, as we see slow-mo scenes of Debbie lotioning her up.
  • Jedi Mind Trick: In the episode "Deathcon 2001" (which takes place at a sci-fi Fan Convention), Nick claims that he can do this. He then turns towards a Cosplay Otaku Girl standing next to him and waves his hand, saying "You will go out with me tonight." Of course, it doesn't work, and the girl slaps him.
  • Kayfabe: Invoked in the first Freak Fight featuring Cousin Grimm vs. Pierce McCrack, two mutants created with the DNA from various celebrities who died on the show. When the fight starts the two just go in for a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown terrifying the audience, until "Stone Cold" Steve Austin (a professional wrestler) puts a stop to the fight and chastises them that the people don't just want to watch them beat the hell out of each other, they want to he entertained. Austin even demonstrates how to deliver a Bond One-Liner before smashing someone's face in, and the two mutants start again making quips, and slinging insults as they fight.
  • Kevlard: Happens when Fiona Apple is fighting against John Popper. His fat not only protected him from getting hurt by Fiona Apple's punches, they also caused her limbs to shatter on impact. He eventually wins simply by rolling over on top of her, squashing her flat.
  • Killer Rabbit: Melissa Joan Hart summons a very familiar black cat in her fight against Alyssa Milano. He ends up kicking Alyssa's butt and tears Tony Danza's face off. However, Salem isn't killer enough to finish the job: he saves Melissa from a burning stake, only for it to fall over and crush both of them.
  • Kill Sat: In one fight (taken from a time capsule from The '80s), Ronald Reagan tried to kill Ayatollah Khomeini with the "Star Wars" Strategic Defense Initiative satellite defense system. The first attempt failed and killed a random audience member, but the second attempt succeeded. Ronald Reagan then proceeded to hook up with Boy George while "Born In the USA" played in the background.
  • Knight in Shining Armor: In his battle with Ozzy Osbourne, Sir Elton John is portrayed as this (as the episode was released shortly after he was knighted). He even comes into battle dressed in full plate armor (although his culet has a piano-key pattern on it).
  • Leaning on the Fourth Wall: When Johnny wonders how much longer the "Evander Holyfield vs. Mike Tyson" fight would go on, Nick guesses "about a minute and 22 seconds", which is also the remaining length of the episode note  before it ended.
  • Let's You and Him Fight: Jerry Springer tries this tactic when he's pitted against fellow daytime talk show hosts, Oprah Winfrey and Rosie O'Donnell. Initially, it works until both ladies realize that he's playing them, and promptly team up and grab both his legs and pull, splitting him down the middle.
  • Light Feminine and Dark Feminine: The Brandy vs. Courtney Love fight: one is a kind, sweet, and childishly innocent pop singer, the other is a violent, wrathful, and often topless (as indicated by a comment by the referee) rock star.
  • Literal-Minded: Nick when operating the VR2000 during the Keanu Reeves vs. Brad Pitt fight. (Eg. "Handgun" = "Gun that fires hands", "Magnum Gun" = "Gun with Tom Selleck's face", "Give me a normal gun you twisted fruit!" = "Give the Magnum Gun fruit ammo", and "Chainsaw" = "Chain saw").
  • Loony Fan: Barbara Bush is portrayed as one towards Gavin Rossdale. After helping Rossdale survive her son's lethal injection machine (by replacing the toxin with chicken soup), she tells him that she loves him and has all his CDs. She then gives him her panties, which Rossdale is (understandably) disgusted by.
  • Loophole Abuse: Believe it or not, someone was once able to win a fight to the death by a technicality. In the Halloween Episode match between Frankenstein's Monster and The Wolfman, the Wolfman turned human again in the middle of the fight. Then he appealed to Mills, saying that because this was a fight to the death and his opponent was already dead (being made of dead body parts) he should be the winner. Possibly Insane Troll Logic, but Mills actually agreed with this. Unfortunately for the Wolfman, he made the mistake of laughing in his opponent's face, and Frankie, who as Nick previously said, did not like teasing, crushed his skull. (Making the fight a very weird double KO.)
    • During John Edwards' bout with Miss Cleo, he kept predicting that she was going to die in that fight. Right as he was about to deal the killing blow, Miss Cleo reveals that she's actually not Miss Cleo. Rather, she's one of several thousand imitators of her. Or, as Edwards pieces it together:
      John Edwards: Wait a minute... If you're not the real Miss Cleo, but one of us is going to die, that leaves...
      "Miss Cleo": You. (shoves a giant Magic 8 Ball into Edwards' mouth)
  • Losing Your Head: Referencing her music video for "One Minute Man", Missy Elliot is shown to be able to survive even after being decapitated by Gwen Stefani. She interrupts Stefani's "victory" celebration by walking over to her, holding her own head, and saying the fight isn't over yet. And she proceeds to win.
  • Loss of Identity: Played with: In Eddie Murphy's fight with Nick Nolte, a combination of Murphy running late and ultimately showing up as Nick Nolte manages to make Nolte think he's actually Murphy (which Nolte justifies due to him playing so many roles in the past note ), and promptly beats himself unconscious just to be sure. And then Mills realizes the second Nolte is actually Murphy. It's easier to follow by watching it.
  • Made of Plasticine: Played in both trope sense and literal sense.
    • Made of Iron: While it seems to be incredibly easy to rip out someone's body parts, the celebrities seem to be very hard to actually kill. Special mention goes to Michael Jackson, who got kicked into a vat of hydrochloric acid and managed to crawl out totally unharmed, protected by plastic surgery, and Colonel Sanders, who gets decapitated and still manages to run around like a mad hen until he falls into a frying pan.
      • Sylvester Stallone gets blown into a pile of goo by Arnold Schwarzenegger and still manages to completely reform, and actually manages to win the match.
      • In the Britney Spears vs. Christina Aguilera fight, both combatants tear each other apart until all that's left is an arm. A moving arm. Whose arm it is is never revealed.
  • Madonna-Whore Complex: Nick reveals he has this after Johnny calls him out on calling Kristen Davis "sweet" and "innocent."
  • Mailman vs. Dog: For his battle with Kevin Smith, Kevin Costner dresses as a postman and uses things like a mailbag and a letter opener to attack. Smith then gets back at him by siccing a dog on him, who bites his arm off. Johnny Gomez snarks that "it must be a bomb-sniffing dog".
  • Make Me Wanna Shout:
  • Mama Bear:
    • Hilariously literalized on the episode "Masters of the Martial Arts," in the Brandy vs. Courtney Love match. The idea was that Courtney was mad about Brandy getting the lead role in Cinderella and wanted revenge, and Brandy wasn't sure why she was there and wasn't interested in fighting. Brandy offers Courtney a present. Courtney opens the box and finds a baby bear. Out of nowhere, the Mama Bear shows up and destroys Courtney Love, giving Brandy the win. Announcer Johnny Gomez takes the time to remind the viewers not to give wild animals as gifts.
    • In a VERY strange example, Lucy Lawless was probably this to Calista Flockhart till a dingo stole her while Lucy was shooting scenes for Xena: Warrior Princess.
  • Manchild: Ashton Kutcher is portrayed this way. He’s introduced bouncing around on a pogo stick surrounded by toys, is given a bagged lunch by his then-wife Demi Moore, has a very perky and lively personality, and sees Demi Moore as something of a mother figure, to the point where he calls her “Mom” and states that “she’s my mother AND my wife!”.
  • Master of Disguise: Eddie Murphy. When Nick Nolte arrives for his fight against him, Murphy is a few minutes late, and he assumes Murphy is in the audience disguised as someone else, which the announcers say they wouldn't put past Murphy, as he is "a regular chameleon". Murphy eventually shows up disguised as Nolte, and convinces Nolte to think that he is actually Murphy in disguise, resulting in Nolte beating himself up. Murphy then gets unmasked by Mills Lane after Lane recognizes his goofy laugh.
  • Mean Character, Nice Actor: Christopher Walken and Gary Oldman are portrayed as this. Both speak cordially with each before their fight, and have to get into character before they can start killing each other. Walken even apologizes after his win.
  • Medium Awareness: The Show Within a Show format makes outright instances of fourth-wall-breaking hard to identify, but it seems the characters do know that they're in a world of stop motion animation. For example, in the episode where Nick is injured, Noah Wyle takes over in the operating room and calls for "two CCs of Play-Doh, stat!". In another episode, Johnny describes the upcoming fights as "hard to animate". It seems to be Depending on the Writer.
  • Medium Blending: The first half of the Beavis vs. Butthead fight has the two drawn in 2D.
  • Missing the Good Stuff: One ep interrupts a fight with a totally pointless report that *NSYNC isn't breaking up. We miss some woman getting curb stomped.
  • "Mission: Impossible" Cable Drop: Before Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman fought against Bruce Willis and Demi Moore, Stacey Cornbred asked to interview Cruise, and he dropped down dangling from two cables as a reference to this famous scene. The cables quickly snap, and he falls onto the floor.
  • Mix-and-Match Man: The Super Freaks. Stone Cold created these creatures out of the DNA of previous fighters using gene splicing and cloning techniques. One of them, Potato Khan, doesn't even consist entirely of human DNA, being the result of Stone Cold accidentally dropping a french fry in the cloning vat and creating a monstrous humanoid potato.
  • Moral Guardians: For some odd reason, this is considered a "family show" in whatever reality it's located in, as Nick and Johnny say many times.
    • One episode has one match (Tommy Lee vs. Ron Jeremy) being broadcast from an underground fight club (in reality, the arena's basement) in order to evade the censors. It doesn't work — after Tommy Lee wins the match by gouging Ron Jeremy's eye out with his dick, Johnny and Nick get a very stern warning from the B.O.O.B. The next match (Alanis Morissette vs. Jewel) has Johnny and Nick finally getting arrested after Alanis celebrates her victory by stripping naked in front of the camerasnote .
  • Motor Mouth: Kathy Griffin is portrayed this way. Not only is she talkative to the point of being annoying and prone to going off on long, rambling tangents, she also weaponizes her "motor mouth" by chewing her opponent, Jenna Elfman, so quickly that Jenna is torn to shreds, making her a very literal example of this trope.
  • Ms. Fanservice: With all the various female actresses, singers, and supermodels, this is bound to happen:
  • Mundane Fantastic: Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, aliens, vampires, zombies, demons, Frankenstein's Monster, werewolves, gorgons, mummies, witches, satyrs, time travellers, cartoon characters come to life and mutant human-potato hybrids can all fight alongside normal humans in the deathmatch ring and nobody bats an eye.
  • Murder the Hypotenuse: Bruce Willis' motivation for facing off against Ashton Kutcher in the Death Match ring. Ever since Demi Moore divorced Bruce Willis, he's been miserable, so he wants desperately to win her back. Therefore, he decides to challenge Moore's then-current lover, Ashton Kutcher, to a duel to the death in order to get a chance at rekindling his relationship with her.
  • Mushroom Samba: At one point, Nick Diamond, who is comatose, goes into a seizure and his son starts slamming a button he thinks is the "call nurse" button. It instead increased the amount of morphine he's given. He calms down, yes, but we are then treated to a delusion he has... of Jimi Hendrix referring a deathmatch between Jerry Garcia and Elvis Presley having just for him.
  • Musical Assassin: Gavin Rossdale finishes off his opponent George W. Bush by plugging his electric guitar into Bush's ear and playing it, which causes Bush's head to explode.
  • Musical Theme Naming: MTV VJ Matt Pinfield's attacks are named this way: the Radio-Head Crusher, the Third Eye Blinder, the Rolling Stone-Cold Stunner, the Mariah Carry, and the Backstreet Boys Back-Breaker.
  • Must Have Caffeine: Katie Couric. As befitting the host of a morning news show, she's depicted as constantly drinking coffee (which is said to be the source of her perky personality). In fact, her opponent, Bryant Gumbel, replaces her coffee with decaf to make her less perky. Once she finds some normal coffee beans, she eats them raw and is instantly rejuvinated.
  • My God, What Have I Done?:
     N-T 
  • Negative Continuity: Bruce Willis died in one episode and showed up in a later one without explanation.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: During the Time Travel episode when Nick and Johnny land in Roman Colosseum:
    Julius Caesar: Do you know what the punishment is for interrupting my death games?
    Johnny: Death games?
    Nick: No, no, you don't... See...
    Caesar: Answer the question!
    Nick: Uhm... Don't tell me... The punishment is we have to fight Rome's mightiest warrior for our freedom?
    Caesar: Hmm... Well, I was just going to fine you both two gold coins and have you exiled, but fighting it shall be!
    Johnny: Nice going, Nick...
  • Nobody Touches the Hair: When Diana Ross is going through security and the security guards pull out all the weapons she hid in her afro, she becomes infuriated that anyone would dare touch her hair and rips off the security guard's hair and scalp in retaliation.
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed: Averted both literally and figuratively. The whole point of the show was to mock celebrities and then kill them off.
  • No-Holds-Barred Beatdown / Curb-Stomp Battle: Several matches, most infamously Andre Agassi vs. Tiger Woods, Pamela Anderson vs. Tommy Lee, and Mahatma Gandhi vs. Genghis Khan. Andre, Pamela, and Gandhi won without a scratch.
  • Non-Indicative Name: On an episode dedicated to rap and hip-hop stars, Tally Wong was disappointed to learn that Lil' Jon, Lil Wayne, Lil' Flip, Lil' Kim, Lil' Romeo, and Lil' Bow Wow are not actually "little people" (she had planned to ask them hard-hitting questions about what it was like living with dwarfism).
  • Non-Specifically Foreign: In the episode "Celebrity Deathmatch Internacional", while Bono and Yoko Ono are identified as being from Ireland and Japan respectively, Fabio is listed as being from "Foreign Country" and when asked where he comes from, responds that he is from a place "where the music is always soft" and that he only goes back on holidays. note 
  • Noodle Incident: There are a few of these, a lot of them concerning Nick. For example, in one episode, Johnny picks up the phone, and Nick whispers to him, "If that's the ASPCA, I'm not here." (Although, in a later episode, Nick is seen using Medusa's severed head on some kittens, so maybe we can get a general idea of why they're upset at him...)
  • Not Quite Dead:
    • A Season 3 episode reveals that Leonardo DiCaprio survived getting his face caved in by Jack Nicholson. He only had it fixed when he fought Woody Harrelson. This time, he died.
    • A more interesting instance of this trope is with Courtney Love. An entire episode was structured around revealing this: Despite being torn apart by a bear, she managed to stay alive long enough to undergo enough surgery and physical therapy to be a whole person again. Her fight with Dave Grohl resulted in her being crushed by a piano.
    • Despite being repeatedly run over during the Andre Agassi vs. Tiger Woods match in Season 3, Brooke Shields reappears alive and well in Season 4 during the match between Jenna Elfman and Kathy Griffin.
    • In Season 4, Claudia Schiffer appears kissing David Blaine during his match against David Copperfield, with her body showing no sign whatsoever of the Season 2 runway show where she, Tyra Banks and Kate Moss literally tore each other's body apart, with nothing but hideous (but still moving) globs remaining of them at that time.
    • Downplayed with Courteney Cox: she was crushed by the sitcom set built in the ring during her match in Season 2. While she doesn't appear in person (...or clay) after that, she calls David Arquette during his match against Paul Reiser in Season 3.
  • Obfuscating Disability: The episode "Nick's Little Friend" has the "Little Pals Foundation" send a paralyzed child (whose dream was to spend time in the booth with Nick) to the booth of CDM. He later uses the fact that "Little Pals" are allowed to do whatever they desire to do things like smoke, drink alcohol, hire strippers, and take other people's money. At the end of the episode it's revealed that he was neither paralyzed nor a child, but rather a grown man who made up the "Little Pals Foundation" to scam people into giving him things for free.
  • Obfuscating Stupidity: Mike Jones and Paul Wall. The two of them are introduced having an intelligent discussion with Tally Wong, before realizing that the cameras are on and reverting to speaking bluntly, incoherently, and in the way one would expect a rapper to speak.
  • Odd Couple: The two commentators, Johnny Gomez and Nick Diamond.
  • Off the Rails:
    • The Brad Pitt vs. Keanu Reeves bout (which occurs thanks to virtual reality technology) becomes derailed when Pitt decides to cut the knot, exit the simulation, and beat up Reeves in the real world.
    • The Cameron Díaz vs. Meryl Streep also counts. It was a scripted fight for the "Celebrity Deathmatch Movie" where Streep loses. But Streep, too engrossed in her role, impales Diaz with a boom mike.
  • Operators Are Standing By: During the main event of the episode "37th Annual Sci-Fi Fight Night", Nick and Johnny start advertising some Celebrity Deathmatch merchandise that fans can call in to purchase. Johnny also quotes the trope verbatim.
  • Our Lawyers Advised This Trope: Each show would start with a disclaimer saying that No Celebrities Were Harmed during the making of this show, and then adding at the end, "Anyway, it's just clay!"
  • Out-of-Character Moment: Mills Lane usually doesn't show much interest in who wins or loses, but in Sylvester Stallone vs. Arnold Schwarzenegger he shows very blatant bias towards Stallone. He also really didn't like Dennis Franz (which may or may not have had something to do with an earlier incident during Lucy Lawless' match with Calista Flockhart, where Mills had to have him kicked out). He was also shown to be pretty upset with Jake Gyllenhaal after he beats Tobey Maguire to death with his own leg. ("You killed Spider-Man, you jerk!")
  • Politically Incorrect Villain:
    • The John Rocker vs. Derek Jeter fight. Unsurprisingly, John Rocker doesn't get the most sympathetic of portrayals, and is electrocuted to death by the match's end.
    • The Dr. Laura Schlessinger vs. Ellen De Generes fight. Dr. Laura's homophobia is emphasized, and naturally, she's portrayed as extremely unlikable. It just makes it all the more satisfying to see her get beaten until her brain falls out and die.
    • The Carlos Mencia vs. Dave Chappelle fight. Carlos Mencia is constantly making racist remarks and justifying himself by saying "people can't take a joke". He gets his just deserts at the end of the match, when he is attacked by a dog and bleeds out.
  • Please Keep Your Hat On: In his fight against Derek Jeter, John Rocker's hat is removed to reveal that the top of his head is made of solid concrete.
  • Produce Pelting: Carlos Mencia gets hot dogs and soda bottles thrown at him after making racist remarks about Asian people.
  • Product Placement: The Michael Jordan vs. Dennis Rodman match features Jordan throwing in plugs for different products in between the action.
  • Professional Wrestling: "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, The Undertaker, Mick Foley, Vince McMahon, and Chyna all appeared as themselves on this show. Austin was a regular cast member, providing commentary for the matches, and served as the science and weapons advisor. That said, in this series...
    • Pro Wrestling Is Real: And so is the kayfabe. In fact, more than real, pro wrestling is deadly, if the fact that pretty much all of the WWE wrestlers are undefeated in the show is any indication.
  • Popularity Power: Subverted at times. Most infamously, the "Weird Al" Yankovic vs. Al Gore fight.
  • "Psycho" Shower Murder Parody: While it doesn't take place in a shower, Alfred Hitchcock (of course) has an attack where he stabs his opponent (Steven Spielberg) with a knife in a direct homage to the famous murder scene from Psycho, complete with his body being framed in shadow, "Psycho" Strings, and the knife never actually being shown stabbing Spielberg. Of course, the fact that the knife was never shown penetrating the flesh results in Spielberg not being damaged from the attack.
  • Purity Personified:
    • Mandy Moore. Her sweetness doesn't stand up so well when it's put up against P!nk.
    • Hilary Duff was also portrayed as this in comparison to her competitor, Lindsay Lohan. Unlike Moore, however, she wins her fight, even using her purity as a weapon to get God to help her out (He spawns a ton of alcohol to distract Lindsay with).
    • Also, in the first season, Brandy Norwood is shown like this when put up against Courtney Love. Brandy, too, wins her fight after she sics a bear cub on Love. She wins accidentally because the mother of the bear cub thinks Courtney was endangering its cub and viciously assaulted her.
    • Subverted with LeAnn Rimes, for which this is just a front: when her façade slips, she becomes a foul-mouthed, chain-smoking psycho, interested in torturing Ol' Dirty Bastard in every imaginable way. In the end, she loses. (ODB turns out to be not such a "bastard" at all.)
  • Raging Stiffie: In the battle between the Osbourne kids and the Olsen Twins, Jack Osbourne gets a fatal one after Mary-Kate whispered in his ear that she and Ashley sometimes shower together.
  • Real After All: "The Prophecy". Stacy finds a prophecy foretelling the death of one of the Deathmatch staff tonight. Various lethal-looking events happen to the staff throughout the episode, but they all survive. At the end she admits she made a mistake. Then she spontaneously combusts.
  • Real-Person Fic:
    • With this show's premise, it's to be expected that most fanfics would feature real celebrities brutalizing each other. The show's section on FanFiction.Net wound up getting discontinued partly for this reason.
    • The show itself is arguably an example.
  • Redemption in the Rain: Parodied. Oliver Stone arranges for one of these shots after he beats Martin Scorsese... only for the camera to slip off the crane and kill him.
  • Reference Overdosed: The show is fueled by three things: gratuitous violence, shout outs, and jabs. A match will not go by without referencing past works, old rumors, or scandals involving the depicted celebrities. Naturally, some matches are based on actual disputes and feuds between the parodied celebs.
  • Rent-a-Zilla: In "The Mystery of the Loch Ness Monster", the Loch Ness Monster (who is portrayed as a large, dragonlike Kaiju) goes on a rampage after its battle with Bigfoot, crushing and eating several audience members, kidnapping Fran Drescher, and escaping the arena. It then proceeds to attack the city, mowing down police officers and military personnel. This episode was released around the same time as Godzilla (1998), which likely inspired this plot point- in fact, Nick straight-up says before the fight "while Godzilla may be chewing up box office records, we've got twice the excitement right here with these two heavyweight monsters".
  • Replacement Scrappy: invoked:
    • Nick Diamond is very unhappy with new, egotistical sideline reporter Debbie Matenopoulos (formerly of The View) when she replaced Stacy Cornbred, who was killed several episodes earlier. Especially Nick, who is constantly arguing with her; Johnny doesn't seem to have much of a negative opinion of Debbie.
    • Played more straight with some fan reaction to Tally Wong after the show was Uncanceled. Interestingly enough, this time it's Johnny who can't stand the interviewer's guts, while Nick is more on the neutral side.
  • Reset Button: Since this is a claymation cartoon, this occurs quite a bit. Perfect example: The arena was shown blown up at the start of "A Celebrity Deathmatch Special Report", and remained that way for the entire episode. The next episode, "Blink-182 vs. 98 Degrees"? Not a scratch.
    • In another example, one episode (the one immediately preceding Special Report, as a matter of fact) ends with the severed head of Medusa turning Nick, Johnny, Mills, and every single person in the crowd to stone. The next episode they're all fine, and it's never mentioned again. Crosses over with Unexplained Recovery.
    • Averted in 4 cases:
      • 1. Nick, after falling off of the announcer's booth in "Celebrity Deathmatch Goes to the Movies" ends up in a coma until he forces himself awake in "Nick's Return", two episodes later.
      • 2. At the end of "The Prophecy", Stacy Cornbred spontaneously explodes. She remains dead for the rest of the series. note 
      • 3. In "Family Night II", Nick is divorced by his wife so she can marry David Letterman. This too remains permanent.
      • 4. In two different matches, The Backstreet Boys got killed by the Beastie Boys and *NSYNC got killed by KISS. In the Backstreet Boys vs. *NSYNC fight, the commentators had to find a way to bring them back.
    • Pretty much any celebrity that's died on the show that isn't shown to be revived, makes it seem like their deaths never happened in the first place. Examples:
      • 1. Don King is shown being killed by various things early on, but seems to keep coming back just to get killed. Averted after his fight with Donald Trump, who kills him and he's never seen again.
      • 2. Shaq died in his first fight with Kobe Bryant, but is magically alive for their rematch.
      • 3. The Olsen Twins were both torn to shreds by Betty-Sue Olsen note  during their fight, yet are magically alive for their fight with Jack and Kelly Osbourne.
      • 4. Marilyn Manson crushes Hanson under the light rigging in Hanson vs. The Spice Girls, but Hanson is still alive enough to attempt to pull the same trick on Marilyn in Marilyn Manson vs. Garth Brooks.
      • 5. Ricky Martin got killed by Marilyn Manson, but got killed again by William Hung in a later episode.
  • Rhymes on a Dime: Shaquille O'Neal in his battle with Kobe Bryant, as a reference to his rap career.
"Thanks for the snack. What a swell treat for Shaq."
"Glass in my eyes, a nasty surprise!"
  • Ronald Reagan: Makes an appearance in a flashback to 1985, refereeing (and later participating in) the fight between Boy George and Don Johnson. It's apparent by his introductory speech that his dementia has begun to set in.
  • Robotic Reveal:
    • Aptly enough, before the first commercial break in "Robot Nicky", the Nick Diamond we saw in the announcer's booth was outed as a robot when Johnny accidentally rips off his face. (Although, him being magnetic was a dead giveaway). As we learn prior to the second fight, Nick skipped work in lieu of taking the vacation to Jamaica the higher ups vetoed and used a robot to cover for himself.
    • The Hugh Grant vs. All Comers bout ends with Andy Dick attempting an And Show It to You... only to rip out some robotic components, causing "Grant" to fall over dead. As it turns out, Grant liked Nick's idea and joined him.
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge: In the "Kevin Bacon vs. All Comers" fight, upon being told by Nick that he was tricked into coming on the show note , Kevin goes nuts on Jesse Ventura (who was previously kicking his ass) by delivering the Fist of Chaos (punching through his chest, and then punching him in the face), climbing through said hole and, after a few more punches, tears Ventura apart.
    • He even wants to continue fighting note  ... even though a CDM All Comers match has three challengers, and Ventura was the last one.
    • Pam Anderson's whole reason for fighting RuPaul is to get back at RuPaul for making a pass at Pam's then husband Tommy Lee, and Pam actually wins the fight because RuPaul made the mistake to do it AGAIN, RIGHT IN FRONT OF PAM.
  • Rule of Funny: After James van der Beek defeats Saddam Hussein (beating him to death with the American flag), Mills Lane... proceeds to slap a pair of handcuffs on Van der Beek for flag desecration, and takes him to jail.
  • Rump Roast: During the Colonel Sanders vs. Dave Thomas fight, the ring is decorated with a variety of fast-food kitchen implements to reference how both of them founded fast-food chains (KFC and Wendy's respectively). One of them is a stove, which Dave Thomas lands on top of after an attack from the Colonel sends him flying, causing his butt to get burned and him to jump off of the stove.
  • Sanity Slippage: After winning the "TLC vs. Dixie Chicks" fight, Left-Eye Lopes goes mad with her own ego, randomly starts talking about herself in third-person, claims to be the queen of the Earth, "the snake from whence all creation came", and proclaims that from now on, both eyes will be left.
  • Self-Deprecation: Sort-of. You know the "Bill Murray vs. Chris Kattan" fight, which kept bashing Kattan? ...care to guess who they got to voice him?
    • This played a part in Rodney Dangerfield's Batman Gambit against Don Rickles, as it forced Don to make better jokes against Rodney than Rodney made about himself (and burn out his material faster). Became Victoryby Endurance when Don couldn't make good jokes and Rodney lays a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown (Johnny even said Rodney did "rope-a-dope" on Don).
  • Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: The main plot of "The Mysterious T" concerns John Edwards predicting a bad fate for Nick, something involving the letter T and some head trauma. After Nostradamus (Edwards' original opponent) flakes on the fight, Nick has to bring in Miss Cleo as a replacement, which nets him a bill of $3,784, which he immediately refuses to pay. Come the end of the episode, Mr. T shows up, baseball bat in hand, to collect. Guess what happens next.
    • Interestingly, this was actually zig-zagged, since Mr. T was also there because Nick hadn't paid his phone bill in several months.
  • Senior Sleep-Cycle: Keith Richards falls asleep in the middle of his battle with Dave Matthews.
  • Serendipity Writes the Plot: A minor In-Universe example: originally, the fight between Weird Al and Al Gore was supposed to be the main event of "In the Head of Nicky Jr.". However, when John Cusack and John Malkovich went missing when it was time for them to fight (they got sucked into Nicky Jr.'s head), the Als' fight and the Johns' fight got switched around.
  • Schizo Tech: The Celebrity Deathmatch Time Machine was made using an old refrigerator.
  • Sex God: Sting can make love for 8 hours without resting (a concept based on an Urban Legend told about him).
  • Share the Male Pain: Johnny Gomez can only say "ouch," and say how painful it was when Bow Wow chews off Romeo's genitals. Mills Lane actually refused to raise Bow Wow's hand in victory.
  • Shown Their Work: Crops up here and there, mostly during the fights through Johnny and Nick's commentary.
  • Shout-Out: There have many times the episodes where there are references to the Real Life counterparts.
  • Signature Move:
    • Most WWF stars that appeared on the show used whatever one their real-life counterpart had. Steve Austin used the Stone Cold Stunner quite a few times (even using it on a moose once) while the Undertaker still had his Tombstone Piledriver.
    • Marilyn Manson had one called the Tahitian Skeleton Pull of Death, although it failed to work the second time he tried it (in that case, Ricky Martin just bit his hand off). He won anyway, although only his hand was declared the winner.
  • Signing-Off Catchphrase: "Good fight, good night."
  • Sitcom Arch-Nemesis:
    • Debbie Matenopoulos for Nick Diamond in the original version.
    • Tally Wong for Johnny Gomez in the 2006 revival.
  • Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon: There was a fight based off of this. Literally; it had Kevin Bacon taking on all comers, and two out of the three who took him on were pissed about his game.
    • The other was Martin Lawrence, but since he was too crazy and dehydrated to fight, Mills forced Kevin to mercy kill him.
    • The game itself played a part in the fight. The requirement for this was that Kevin Bacon's co-stars could challenge him; the game was used on said two out of three to justify them being there (since Meg Ryan and Jesse Ventura didn't actually work with Bacon directly).
  • Slapstick: Celebrities suffered from Amusing Injuries all the time, and females were subjected to them as much as the men. For example, Cher, Fiona Apple, Courtney Love and Carmen Elektra were all Squashed Flat (Love after having a piano dropped on her, and Elektra after being Thrown Across The Room), Jewel was crushed into the shape of a hockey puck, then whacked into a light fixture, hockey-style, and the fight between Lucy Lawless and Callista Flockhart was pretty much all slapstick. (highlights included Callista slamming Lucy's head into a copy machine, Lucy stuffing Callista into a desk and launching her with a mace, and it all cumulated with Lucy winning by "absorbing" her through the ass, which was as weird as it sounds.)
  • Slobs Versus Snobs: The premise for a few fights, including Rosanne Barr vs. Kelsey Grammer or the Three Tenors vs. the Three Stooges.
  • Southern-Fried Genius: "Stone Cold" Steve Austin.
  • Southern Gentleman: Colonel Sanders, of course. He's so gentlemanly, in fact, that he at first refuses to fight his opponent Dave Thomas and instead shakes his hand... only to hit Thomas with his cane.
  • Spiritual Successor: The Epic Rap Battles of History come to mind, in the sense that two celebrities are also battling each other, be it verbally rather than physically, and pop culture references to both their lives and works are made.
    • DEATH BATTLE! can also be considered a spiritual successor, in the sense that two characters from different franchises duke it out in a battle to the death. Death Battle even occasionally uses real life celebrities (such as Justin Beiber vs. Rebecca Black) as opposed to only using fictional characters.
  • Spontaneous Human Combustion: In one episode it appears that referee Mills Lane is about to suffer from this, but it turns out it's just gas. Later, interviewer Stacy Cornbred starts showing signs of it, and Nick Diamond and Johnny Gomez think it's just gas... until she suddenly explodes.
  • Squash Match:
    • The Loch Ness Monster kills Bigfoot in six seconds, before the bell rang. The audience were angry at this, and Austin called that match a "six-second suckfest".
    • The Uncanceled first season has one with the Kobe Bryant vs. Shaq rematch.
    • Pam literally did some squashing to beat Tommy Lee.
  • Stage Mom:
    • The Lindsay Lohan vs. Hilary Duff fight featured Dina Lohan in full-on Stage Mom mode, constantly making excuses for her daughter's troubling behavior.
    • A male example is Mathew Knowles, who is revealed to have implanted a microchip in his daughter's brain to control her every move. When Missy Elliott finds out, she grabs the remote control from him and uses it to make Beyoncé humiliate herself.
  • Stalker with a Crush: In the Lindsay Lohan vs. Hilary Duff fight, it is strongly implied (and eventually revealed) that Nick Diamond is stalking Lindsay. After Lindsay loses, Nick brings her back to life using the time machine.
  • Stock Scream: In most, if not all deathmatches (mainly from the original run on MTV), there would be the sound of a woman screaming in the audience, with each matchup featuring the same scream.
  • Stop Motion
  • Stylistic Suck: One episode features the discovery of a time capsule with a cheaply done, Totally Radical faux-version of the show from The '80s where Boy George fights Don Johnson (with Ronald Reagan as the guest referee). It's possibly the show's finest moment.
  • Take That!: Combatants will often insult each other between blows, and the commentators' dialogue is also full of Take Thats.
    • The James van der Beek vs. Saddam Hussein fight definitely counts, if only for the conclusion.
    • In fact, it seems to be such vital theme of the show that it would be easier to list the celebrities that it doesn't happen to. Even the ones that star As Themselves aren't immune.
    • The Harrison Ford vs. Samuel L. Jackson fight has Ford talking about how the original trilogy was better than the prequels:
      Harrison Ford: Give it up, punk! Everyone loves the old Star Wars better! We had Stormtroopers, the Death Star, and oh yeah, a plot!
      Samuel L. Jackson: That crap's old-school, chump! We've got the pod race, an underwater sequence, and better merchandising deals!
    • An in-universe subversion: near the end of "High Tech Fighting", Nick brings up how Johnny told him that insurance was "like legalized gambling" (after revealing he never got the VR2000 insured after it got blown up)... only for Johnny to point out that he was drunk at the time.
      Johnny: Jesus, Nick, you know better than to listen to me while I'm drunk!
    • Also, the David Letterman vs. Jay Leno fight opens with the guest ref (Johnny Carson) saying "I taught you everything you know. Despite that, both your shows are almost unwatchable."
    • The Spice Girls vs. Hanson fight can only be described as this, since the two compete for the title of "Most Annoying Band in the World." There's no actual finish, as Marilyn Manson chainsaws off part of the rigging, causing it to crush both bands. He then is interviewed about it where he goes on about being "the most evil man in America."
    • Likewise, Kathy Griffin and Jenna Elfman fight for the title of "Most Annoying Woman in Television". Kathy wins.
    • "Fandemonium IV" concerns Survivor note . This is what Nick has to say right off the bat:
      Nick: A great choice, Johnny! Everybody knows that CBS show is stupid. I mean, how can you call a show "Survivor" when nobody dies?!? The networks may call that entertainment, I call it (gives a double thumbs down) poo.
      • Not to mention the end to the episode, where Sole Survivor "Survivor: Outback"'s Tina Wesson recalls how much of a dick Jeff Probst was on their season and burns his face off with a torch.
    • The Shaq vs. Kobe Bryant rematch after the series reboot was quite obviously one to Kobe, the writers showing their clear biased opinions of the whole Kobe rape scandal by having Shaq effortlessly tear off Kobe Bryant's head within the first few seconds the match starting.
  • Teens Are Monsters: The entire premise behind the Frankie Muniz vs. Robert Iler fight, both of them Former Child Star going through puberty, simmering in a cocktail of hormones and frustration, facing the possible end of their careers. With the prize of a few extra years of childhood and fame thanks to the Deathmatch Time Machine, you better believe they're prepared to kill.
  • That's No Moon: The Trope Namer is spoofed in one episode when Bam Margera is knocked out of the ring and goes into orbit around the massively fat Don Vito.
  • Think of the Censors!: The hosts and Mills are occasionally forced to chastise celebrities for their behavior, because in whatever warped version of the world this show takes place in, it's considered "a family show".
  • They Killed Kenny Again: In the first few episodes, Don King would routinely get killed. Eventually, he would enter a Deathmatch of his own (against Donald Trump), where he would be killed off for good.
  • Time Travel: The Celebrity Deathmatch Time Machine is used to bring back historical figures to fight each other, as well as celebrities who have been killed in past fights. In one episode, the machine accidentally sucks Debbie Matenopoulos back in time, causing Johnny Gomez and Nick Diamond to use the time machine to go back in time to ancient Rome (where Nick fights a satyr in the Coliseum), Victorian London (where Sherlock Holmes fights Jack the Ripper), and the age of the dinosaurs.
    • It also gives us Busta Rhymes vs. William Shakespeare, which Shakespeare wins when Busta runs into the time machine, sending him back to the Bard's time.
    • Mankind gets to defeat Ernest Hemingway.
    • A running gag in the Season 5 match Adam West vs. Christian Bale was everyone believing that Adam West was dead and came back through this, no matter how much he tried to convince them otherwise. He eventually gets fed up with this and storms off after he wins.
      • This joke had also been used before, in the Season 4 (then-series) finale, where Nick insisted that Keith Richards was dead and that Steve Austin (who had actually seen him in a Stones' gig the week before) bring him back with the time machine to fight Dave Matthews. Naturally, Keith Richards shows up alive and well, proving Nick wrong just as his previous week's self comes out of the time machine. Time-Travel Tense Trouble ensued, and the past Keith in the present was erased from existence.
  • Title Scream: Each episode would start with quick rundown on upcoming matches, ending with "tonight on: Celebrity Deathmatch!", which is accompanied by the title logo.
  • There Are No Rules: The Trope is subverted most of the time. A few episodes claim that it applies as much as any Deadly Game, but other episodes say they have a few rules (the fight between "Stone Cold" Steve Austin and Vince McMahon says there's a rule prohibiting "ozone-depleting aerosols", which Vince breaks, but is not penalized for), and in others, it seems that Nick and Johnny can add whatever rules to a fight they want. In one episode, Nick does say that the "number one rule of Deathmatch" is, "Don't piss off Mills". And indeed, in most cases, whatever Mills Lane says goes.
  • Tonight, Someone Dies: Stacey, in one episode, received a prophecy that one of the Deathmatch crew would die before the end of the night. She tried to warn everyone, but they laughed it off. By the end of the episode, despite a few close calls, none of the crew was dead, so it seemed like the prophecy was bogus… until Stacey spontaneously combusted.
  • Too Dumb to Live: Several cases.
    • The Paul Reubens vs. George Michael fight. Before the fight, Reubens (in character as Pee Wee Herman) said that the secret word for the fight would be "sucker", and that when he shouted it, the crowd was to start screaming wildly. Later in the fight, Reubens tricked Michael into taming a tiger and making it go to sleep... only for Reubens to shout "Sucker!" Yeah, George kinda deserved that one.
    • RuPaul got challenged to a deathmatch by Pamela Anderson for trying to flirt with Pam's husband at the time, and she decides the best thing to do is to try it again... needless to say, Pam let RuPaul have it.
    • Brandy accepted Courtney Love's challenge to a Deathmatch despite not wanting to hurt anyone, because she didn't know what a "Deathmatch" was. Subverted in that Brandy does end up winning, albeit by accident.
    • Little Richard tearing off his own nipples and bleeding to death in his fight against Lil' Kim.note 
    • Nick Lachey manages to out-idiot Jessica Simpson. She gives him a grenade with the pin still in it, but then he pulls the pin and holds it, blowing himself up.
  • Too Important to Walk: The ridiculously rich Donald Trumpnote  is carried onto the ring, encased in an exact replica of the famous Trump Tower. The men carrying the tower replica end up dropping it, and Trump fires them both.
  • 2xFore: In an episode pitting the best known James Bond actors, Sean Connery and Roger Moore against one another, it's a battle of improbable spy gadgets. Sean Connery eventually pulls out a board with a nail hammered through it.
    U-Z 
  • Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny: Though the combatants involved are primarily Real Life celebrities and historical figures, many matchups range from improbable (Bill Gates vs. Michael Flatley) to impossible (Mahatma Gandhi vs. Genghis Khan). Effectively, these are crossover fights.
  • The Un Favourite: Wynonna Judd; according to her, her mother always favored her sister Ashley Judd. When Ashley brings this up, she becomes so distraught that she reaches for a can of marshmallow fluff.
  • Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Had Johnny and Nick just listened to Stone Cold's warning about using those two giant mechs that weren't tested, the Blink 182 / 98 Degrees bout wouldn't have spilled out into the street, and wind up almost getting everyone nuked.
  • Vacation Episode: "Celebrity Deathmatch Internacional", the sixth episode of Season 2. The gimmick here is that each of the three fights in the episode takes place in a different country: the first takes place in Australia and pits two Australian celebrities (Mel Gibson and Paul Hogan) against each other, the second takes place in Cuba and pits two Hispanic celebrities (Antonio Banderas and Cheech Marin) against each other, and the third takes place in The Hague (the location of the International Court of Justice) and pits celebrities from 3 different countries (Bono from Ireland, Fabio from Italy, and Yoko Ono from Japan) against each other.
  • Vengeful Vending Machine: The "Prom Night Special" episode has Johnny Gomez announce that there will be two hours detention after the evenings matches for anyone caught tipping over vending machines in the arena lounge, with a cutaway to two teenagers doing exactly that, with one getting crushed to death for his troubles.
  • Victoria's Secret Compartment:
    • Fittingly, in a fight between two Victoria's Secret models, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos and Naomi Campbell, they both used this in their fight to pull water bottles, a cellphone, and a big needle.
    • Jessica used this in her second fight by pulling out a grenade to kill her opponent.
  • Victory by Endurance: Rodney Dangerfield won his "Roast Match" against Don Rickles by getting Don to run out of material, when Rodney went on a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown that began with "Okay, Cueball, now it's time to teach YOU some Respect!" Each blow was then delivered with a letter of "Respect," the final one an uppercut that turned Don into pieces of meat for the grill in the ring.
  • Voices Are Mental: During the fight between Melissa Joan Hart and Alyssa Milano, Mills Lane gets turned into a woman. However, his voice still sounds the same.
  • What Does This Button Do?: The reason why the giant mech battle spills out into the street in "Blink 182 vs. 98 Degrees"? Nick Lachey decided to see what pressing a button labeled "DO NOT PRESS" would result in... which causes the back thruster on their mech to kick in.
  • What the Hell, Audience?: After the first commercial break of "Fandemonium IV", Johnny greets us with the following:
    Johnny: Folks, if you're just joining us... what the hell is wrong with you?!
  • Whole-Plot Reference:
    • Well, more or less a subplot, but the episode "In The Head of Nicky Jr." basically involved the aforementioned Nicky Jr. having people end up in his head ala Being John Malkovich. (Ironically, John Cusack and John Malkovich fought in this episode over that very movie.)
    • Even more ironically, guess where said fight took place?
    • The episode "Festival of Food Fights", with the final fight of Kevin Spacey vs. Michael Caine that ends with Spacey winning but being killed by a deranged Dave Thomas, has a sub-plot of Spacey wandering around the stadium delivering what is eventually revealed to be Posthumous Narration a la American Beauty.
  • Wildlife Commentary Spoof: Steve Irwin spends his time in the ring doing a running naturalists' commentary on the Medusa he was supposed to be fighting. He has a Heroic BSoD when he accidentally kills her.
  • Wimp Fight: Jerry Seinfeld vs. Tim Allen. Ended with the cast of Seinfeld storming the ring to beat up Jerry for canceling the show, which the audience found far more entertaining.
    • J. K. Rowling vs. Stephen King, until Rowling summons Voldemort. This leads to Rowling's death by King's now-animated robotic leg.
  • Windbag Politician: Fidel Castro is portrayed this way in "Celebrity Deathmatch Internacional". Since one of the fights in the episode (Antonio Banderas vs. Cheech Marin) is set in Cuba, Castro is the referee for that match. Before the fight begins, he outlines all the rules that the competitors must follow... which ends up taking several hours and results in Banderas, Marin, the audience, and even Johnny falling asleep.
  • Wizard Duel: The fight between Melissa Joan Hart and Alyssa Milano. Both of them were known for playing witches on TV (being the stars of Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Charmed (1998) respectively), so CDM has them do battle using magic.
  • Worked Shoot: George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg try to stage a fake deathmatch for the purposes of gambling fraud, even though they were close friends in real life. This backfires when Paul Newman and Robert Redford notice how phony their 'fight' is and challenge them to a real one. Newman and Redford win.
  • Writing Around Trademarks / You Wanna Get Sued?: Occurred during the fight between Tobey Maguire and Jake Gyllenhaal, when the hosts had to avoid making explicit reference to Doctor Octopus, who Jake had brought in to attack Tobey. Instead, they referred to him as "a certain eight-armed villain from a certain hit superhero film" (Paraphrasing).
  • Wrong Genre Savvy:
    • Ray Romano thought he only had to pin Drew Carey in their fight, not kill him. He caught on fast, though.
    • Alfred Hitchcock has a problem similar to Romano; he doesn't understand that subtle violence doesn't impress people these days. Again, however, he catches on fast.
    • Howard Cosell didn't quite understand that the show had no rules back when he guest-commentated in 1973 during the "OJ Simpson vs. Joe Namath", leading him to berate Mills' apparent poor refereeing. Nick had to point this out to him.
      • Similarly, we have OJ freaking out over being declared the winner, despite the fact that he was allowed to kill Namath.
  • Yarling:
    • The reason why they pit Eddie Vedder against Scott Stapp.
      Eddie Vedder: (while kicking Stapp three times) Give me back my vooo-ooo-oice!
      Scott Stapp: (retributing the "favor" to Vedder) It's my voice, too-ooo-ooo!
    • Vedder eventually wins by scraping Stapp's throat with a piece of barbed wire, which gives him a gravelly Tom Waits-like voice. Unfortunately, Waits himself is in the crowd, and he promptly gets down to the ring and beats Stapp to a pulp.
  • Your Head Asplode: Some deathmatches end this way.
    • In one of the first episodes, Mariah Carey, during her fight with Jim Carrey, sings a VERY high note for an extended period of time, much to the displeasure of everyone in the arena. The intensity of the note cracks the In-Universe cameras and proves to be too much for Jim, whose head expands like a balloon before exploding.
    • Happens again in Jack Black vs. Jack White, where Jack White puts a button-up shirt with a slightly small collar on Jack Black, causing his head to explode. It's true that some of the fights can have silly and nonsensical endings, but even by Celebrity Deathmatch standards it's pretty ridiculous.
    • The fight between David Arquette and Paul Reiser ends when Arquette jams several cellphones in Reiser's skull, then makes them all ring at the same time. The phones' microwaves cause huge tumors to develop in Reiser's head which then swells and explodes. It's actually kind of disturbing.

"So, for all of us at TV Tropes, I'm Johnny Gomez."
"And I'm Nick Diamond."
"Good fight, good night."

 
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You Meddling Sportscasters

When Johnny Gomez reveals John Tesh murdering Bob Costas, Tesh would've gotten away with it if it weren't for the former and Nick Diamond, meddling sportscasters.

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