Such hubris was par for the course with Pia, however. Her billionaire husband, Meshulam Riklis, had thrown his vast wealth and influence behind her effort to launch a film career (including, it was rumored, bribing judges to get her the Golden Globe as "Best New Star"). However, it was immediately apparent that whateve Pia's talent it didn't run to acting and she quickly gained a reputation as strictly T&A with no depth.

With their frontal assault on the movie industry failing to achieve satisfactory results, Pia and her husband decided to impress the producers, directors and studio heads by coming at them from a different direction. The leading powers in Hollywood made up the audience at these elite catfights and Pia's plan was to establish herself as a top fighter, thus impressing the industry with her prowess to the point where she would begin to get the prestigious movie roles she felt she deserved. Pia wouldn't be the first struggling actress to try it. Sometimes it succeeded as with Mitzi Gaynor in the 50's and Raquel Welch in the 60's but more than not often it failed dismally.

Pia hired a trainer and underwent a crash course in combat wrestling. She was an apt pupil, though hardly a natural. After several weeks of intensive, daily study, she demanded a match with Kennedy, who was currently on a winning streak which made her 'the woman to beat.'

No one bothered to try and talk Pia out of it; she was considered a nuisance in the movie colony and more than a few people relished the thought of her suffering a pounding at the hands of the Amazonian Jayne Kennedy.

For her part, Jayne wasn't worried about her opponent. Although she was canny enough not to underestimate anyone, she knew that Pia was hardly a first-class threat the way a Jaclyn Smith or a Morgan Fairchild would be. The sepia beauty maintained a casual training regimen, and wondered aloud to friends if she would even break a sweat during the match.

At last, the night of the battle arrived. Jayne wore a burgundy one-piece which accented her voluptuous curves, while Pia wore a black one-piece of the "French" style, low in the front and high on the sides. As the two women stood facing one another, a chuckle ran through the assembled guests; Jayne stood nearly a foot taller than Pia and outweighed her by at least twenty-five pounds. The odds against Pia reached staggeringly new heights in the eyes of the spectators.

The signal was given and the match began. Jayne was coolness personified, circling her prey with a panther's grace, her eyes missing nothing. Pia, by comparison, was a bundle of nervous tension, seemingly on the verge of exploding. Unable to contain herself any longer, the blond charged at her foe with a banshee's howl. Pia threw herself at Jayne trying a tackle...but she hit only empty air.

With a fluid motion, the brunette side-stepped her opponent's clumsy lunge and Pia stumbled until tripping over her own feet and hitting the floor. A burst of laughter tore through the room, with smiles on the faces of all but one guest...Pia's chagrined husband who sank a bit deeper into his overstuffed leather chair.

Angrily, the petite blond got up from the floor. This time, she approached Jayne more cautiously. Curious to see what Pia was capable of doing, Jayne let the blond launch her offensive.

It was obvious Pia had received excellent instruction. She applied a series of complex holds on her taller, more powerful rival. However, she did so with the hesitation and uncertainty of a novice, and Jayne was more than experienced enough to escape and counter each maneuver. Pia, lacking such experience, didn't know how to adapt what she had been taught with the reality of the moment. All she knew for certain was that she was looking like a fool, and her blood boiled ever hotter.

Jayne, finally tiring of her opponent's near-comical effort to overpower her, finally scooped the smaller woman up in her arms, lifted her off of the floor, and then threw her back down to the carpet like a rag doll. Again, laughter rolled through the room.

If anyone had bothered to look closely at this moment, they would have seen the furious glint in Pia's eyes. She had tried to play by the Hollywood rules, but that had earned her nothing but humiliation and derision. Now, they thought she was finished. But they were wrong. It was time for Pia to abandon her California training and reclaim her New Jersey heritage.

On the streets of Hoboken, Pia had learned how to fight. It wasn't pretty, and it wasn't womanly, but it got the job done.

As Jayne reached down to grab Pia by the hair and pull her back up to her feet, the blonde's hands suddenly darted out, the nails of both slashing at the eyes of her rival. Jayne let out a shriek and stumbled backwards, momentarily blinded.

Pia pressed her sudden advantage with a punch deep into the brunette's belly, doubling Jayne over. A knee lift to the jaw sent the statuesque beauty down on her butt, dazed.

Sitting atop her foe, Pia straddled Jayne and pinned her arms to her sides with her knees. Now it was time to administer a little humiliation! The blond grabbed the top of Jayne's bathing suit and tore it away, exposing Jayne's full bosom. Pia then went to work on the breasts, kneading them with her fingers, clawing them, driving her small, hard fists into them like pistons. Jayne moaned, mewled and screamed, suddenly reduced from a conquering warrior to a helpless ingenue. Pia just grinned like a Cheshire cat as she relentlessly tormented her victim.

Had she pressed her advantage, gone in for the kill, Pia might well have scored the upset victory. Unfortunately, she chose to gloat instead. Getting up off of her foe, Pia taunted her, demanding that she get back up and make a fight of it. Convinced that she now had the edge, the blond wanted to play as a cat does with a mouse.

Unfortunately, in so doing she squandered her best hope of triumph. Her attack was successful largely because it was swift and constant. Jayne had faced plenty of brawlers in the past, and she knew how to handle them...IF she had a chance to catch her breath and calculate a counteroffensive of her own. Pia's assault had denied her that...until now.

Pia was still taunting when Jayne sprung from a crouching position, tackling the startled blond. Pia landed with the full weight of her opponent upon her, which knocked the air from her lungs. Jayne unleashed a barrage of punches to the face and head of her foe, which quickly sapped Pia's strength and left her groggy.

Rising to her feet, Jayne picked up the limp body of her opponent and, with a magnificent show of strength, lifted her onto her shoulders. Jayne began to spin around and around in an Airplane Spin while all Pia could do was groan as the last of her senses were dulled. Then, with a final burst of power, Jayne lifted Pia straight up from her shoulders and flung her through the air. The blond landed on top of her own husband and the momentum of the collision knocked his chair over backward. Both husband and wife crashed unceremoniously to the floor in a heap.

It was a decisive finish and the spectators erupted into a rousing applause for the winner. Another Jayne Kennedy victory...but at a cost. For a match in which the dusky beauty wasn't supposed to 'break a sweat,' she was in far from pristine perfection. Her lungs gulped in oxygen to compensate for the exhaustion which wracked her frame; her breasts were scratched and bruised, and she would be feeling the aches for days to come; her legs wobbled somewhat unsteadily, as if they threatened to collapse under her own weight. And although her smile lit up the room, her face was bathed in heavy perspiration. No, this was far from the easy victory everyone had expected.

As for Pia Zadora, she was disappointed by the loss, of course. But she was also anxious to get another match with someone, and quickly, in order to put to good use the lessons she had learned on this night. And, someday very soon, she would face Jayne Kennedy again on the carpeted battlefield. And on that night, everything would be different.