American Idol: The Main Event. On Broadcast TV.

It has all come down to this. The Two Davids: Cook vs. Archuleta. The Rocker vs. The Kid. Mac Guy vs. Alfred E. Neuman. Who will be the next American Idol?

OK, that was a little bit much. But after watching ring announcer Michael Buffer introduce the final two with his trademark line to a screaming audience of 7,000 at the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles, and with HBO 's Jim Lampley providing commentary on the Fox telecast, we couldn't resist. But because boxing has become a pay-per-view sport with anonymous champions, Idol's target audience might not have understood the significance.

Round One was songs chosen by record executive Clive Davis, for whom the winner will be entrusting his career to. Davis seems to have a knack for picking long song titles, as you will see.

• David Cook performed U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For". It's not Bono, but it wasn't bad.
• David Archuleta did Elton John's "Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me". He performed it like George Michael, who also had a hit record with it (in a duet with Elton, no less), would have done it.

Round Two were songwriters' choices. For a change, neither David sang the same tune.

• Cook performed some rocker I never did catch the name of. With guitar in hand, he looked to be in his comfort zone here.
• Archuleta, wearing a cheesy anchor jacket, sang "In This Moment". Shouldn't it have been "Beyond The Sea"?

The final round was a song chosen by the contestant.

• Cook's version of Collective Soul's "The World I Know" was less bombastic than the original. He does win points for trying something different than what judge Simon Cowell wanted, which was a reprise of "Billie Jean".
• Archuleta's "Imagine" was more Vegas-worthy than John Lennon-worthy, but it wasn't bad.

By this time, the comments of judges Randy Jackson and Paula Abdul were in full gush mode, to the point where they should have asked the Two Davids for their autographs. Only Cowell was willing to go out on a limb and declare Archuleta the winner, in his humble opinion.

We've heard the complaints that, in spite of all the voting being done on your (or your teenager's) AT&T cellphone, Archuleta's victory is all but assured and Cook is merely the fall guy. But then again, we've heard the same complaints about boxing, too. It's not something you can really prove. All we can do is sit through two hours of a bloated finale tomorrow night before Ryan Seacrest announces the decision.