This reminds me of when I was watching Ali and Frazier live before they fought in a press conference, and Ali kept saying he couldn't sing, and Frazier knocked him over, and they wrestled on the ground. We didn't know whether it was staged, but found out that day that it was a real fight.
There used to be a lot of live sports filler on national TV, especially for hours and hours on the weekend, like Wide World of Sports. The good old days.