Spike TV broadcast their 2008 Video Game Awards on Sunday night, and the big surprise wasn’t any of the winners. (Your Game of the Year? “Grand Theft Auto IV”. Yawn.) It was an appearance by Mike Tyson, there to promote the upcoming release of “Fight Night Round 4.” Not that he did anything particularly exciting: no trying to bite off show host Jack Black’s ears, no threatening to “eat Luigi’s children.” No, the shock was, quite simply, his appearance:

One of the people above is King Hippo from “Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out” and the other is Tyson himself, sporting a physique more along the lines of Buster Douglas than the Baddest Man on the Planet. Can you spot which is which? (Hint: Tyson is the one whose wardrobe is sponsored by Dockers.)

Yes, as NBC WASHINGTON notes, Tyson has gone from the Heavyweight Champion to just plain heavy. And to get the obvious joke out of the way: I checked, and he did not in fact eat Lennox Lewis’ children. Although I will point out that the tattoo of Arthur Ashe on his left arm has now expanded to the point that it’s become a stirring tribute to Rerun from “What’s Happening.”

Also on the show, the allegedly funny Kevin James did a skit promoting his upcoming movie “Paul Blart: Mall Cop,” a film that looks so mind-blowingly idiotic that it makes Larry the Cable Guy’s film oeuvre look like a Fellini retrospective. The bit featured professional skateboarder Mike Vallely doing the type of tricks that make you wonder if you could be a professional skateboarder, and featured a special cameo by UFC fighter Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, proving that the show producers clearly put out a casting call for large, completely insane black athletes.

Enjoy the “comedy”: