HUNKS OF BEEF Fabio, Clooney
(Photo: Getty Images)

Is there a more prime pair of beefcakes to begin with than George Clooney and Fabio? Early this week, Fabio (48, an animal rights activist) was seated in a restaurant behind Clooney (46, a left-wing Darfur-ist). George believed the flashbulbs popping at Fabio's table—those of Fabio's many female guests—were secretly aimed at him. (This is conceivable to us.) Geo in his ire pulled a sarcastic-clap routine, issuing a colorful invective and middle-finger in the ladies' general direction. Fabio, ever the gentleman, took umbrage and stepped to Clooney. (Clooney's bird-flipping style? Fem by most comparisons: tall and straight between two fingers bent sharply at the knuckles, the thumb jutting out like a hitchhiker's.)

"I thought you were a nice guy," Fabio reportedly said, adding, "Stop being a diva." A pushing match ensued, but at five-feet-eleven, Clooney, in a black suit, must have looked fairly silly up against the "God of Romance" draped in princely purple, who himself stands in at an estimable six-feet-three inches. For those keeping score, this puts chivalry, color-scheme, mane, and heft all in Fabio's corner.

Rumors quickly spread that the beef is actually years old, that it started when Clooney came to the aid of a slighted young lady being berated by the lusciously locked Adonis. Which leads us to the chicks, who are always critical in this type of scuffle. Clooney's fetching full-timer, Sarah Larson, of course, has a broken hoof, the result of her leading man laying down his motorcycle. And Fabio? Are you surprised to find him hosting five women, all a tad aged, sure, but each with in-tact hoofs and generous hearts? Turns out they won dinner (and a menage-a-six? Probably. You've seen that dude.) with Fabio through a charity auction.

But the motorcycle, we believe, is of vital importance. Both men are avid riding enthusiasts, and we can imagine the whispered exchange: Fabio in a gentle yet firm Milanese accent, "Jjjorgge, you are a leeetle beeetch. Have a nice fall from your motorbike? Beeetch."

Clooney had everything to lose and nothing to gain, and Fabio played the matter like a six-packed PR pro, grabbing enough crucial headlines to land him a year's worth of I Can't Believe It's Not Butter ads. In the end, Web scouring yielded this quote, to which we found no Clooney equal: "Fabio has one of the world's premiere home entertainment systems. Which he installed himself." Victory goes to Fabio.