The "Throwdown" formula is simple. Highly-trained chef and host, Bobby Flay, gets his staff to convince hometown cooking heroes that Food Network wants to make a feature about them. Instead, Bobby Flay shows up, and tries to show that he can do a better job than the local chefs at their specialty, even though Flay just learned to make their dish a week ago. It's like promising a local swim champ that CNN wants to feature him for being such an inspiration with a new technique--but then, they send Michael Phelps to show the kid that he actually sucks compared to an Olympian. Having Bobby Flay duke it out with great local chefs is a cool idea, but I don't know why he has to ambush them and crush their dreams all at once.