Before: Barcelona - Spain vs France - continental celebrity bout goes over like a world cup soccer trial. Lithe sluggers vowing to leave one another on the canvas, and if Cruz decides to abandon her boxing, that could happen. Extra celeb panache given the event as Tom Cruise shows up ringside to cheer his new paramour - huge cheer from the audience as he takes a bow in the ring before festivities begin. Ledoyen in black leather bra style bikini, wet curls, Penelope in red push up and panties, low ponytail - girls refusing to touch gloves after instructions.

During R1: They come out winging - limber little bodies swaying in and out, delicate jawlines stroked hard, slender arms shivering upon contact as bulbous mitts bounce off bone. Midway through, the ruinous trade starts to take a toll on Ledoyen - she's sullen, fielding huge right hands off her face and coming back too slow to catch the darting, slashing spaniard. Cruz gets her whole body in behind a bending right hand off the cheek, crushing Ledoyen's head to her shoulder and the French girl slouches forward at the ropes, dizzily stumbling to her right before slowly settling to all fours. From then on, it's a heartless one way ransacking as Cruz comes on in lean waves, crashing punch after lanky punch to the French girl's once beautiful face, buffetting a stupified Ledoyen along the ropes, around the ring. Virginie bludgeoned to her knees again from the sheer accumulation, somehow struggles up and finishes a disasterous round, sagging against the ropes, hunkering forward to accept welting blows to her ribs as Cruz bats away two fisted at the bell. Crowd goes wild - Virginie lowers her mitts to reveal tragic facial damage - she's helped to her corner as a coquettish Penelope preens for her fans.

R2: Cruz showing respect for Ledoyen's amazing resiliency - Virginie still badly dazed - Penelope picks her apart with in and out boxing, stepping side to side, ringing the French girl up with fall-away hooks hard off the jaw that leave Ledoyen wobbly butt, but always trudging forward.

R3: Cruz mounts another sensational attack, confident that her opponent is only a few big shots away from submission. Leaping in and out on springy dancer's legs, Cruz slings her right hand hard against Ledoyen's swollen face, ducks in close to the French girl, then nips out to the side to drag a calling card hook into the mouth or stomach. Almost sickening to watch - Cruz able to get enough on savage blows to the head to send Ledoyen reeling, but unable to get the French girl on her back - it's senseless, meanspirited punishment. Ledoyen goes out on her feet, then rallies on countless occasions, gloves listless at her mouth or chest, face shining up and eyes swelling brutally under the licking. Virginie finishes up the round insensate, sliding mindlessly along the ropes as Cruz loads up and lands right hand after right hand upside the head.

R4: Cruz complaining of pain in her fists, spends a round punishing Ledoyen's pillows, working the bra with snapping little lefts and rights, stepping away whenever a punchy Virginie pushes an exhausted response back, then leaning back in with the overhand right to begin anew. Down the stretch, Cruz bites at Virginie's body, careful to avoid the elbows or hard ribcage, digging her fists into the trunks as the referee turns a blind eye and ear to Ledoyen's wailing protests.

R5: Screening left sets up a sweeping overhand right that bashes off face and Ledoyen is sent to her back at the ropes as the crowd goes wild. Again, Virginie seems out, only to climb the ropes in a grim parody of a fully functioning fighter. Weaving on trembling legs, Ledoyen is a lost little girl - Cruz jabs her to the ropes and dives in again, stiff arming the left, leaving it on Virginie's chest then bashing home the right to bust up that left eyebrow. Finally, the torrent of lanky-limbed power shots begins to abate as Cruz punches herself out, and incredibly, Ledoyen starts to brawl her way off the ropes. Final minute sees Virginie sustain a plugging, tortuous offense, walking forward, licking her punches up into Cruz who backs away open mouthed, moving her upperbody to slip punches.

R6: Girls wallow into the sewer as each gets cheap and hurtful in mindless brawling action. Elbows are employed with ruthless efficiency, smashing away at sinewy biceps or cracking hard against bony ribcages - girls fight flat footed, leaning forward and slugging one another repeatedly in the trunks - European ref looking on with a wildly different interepretation of the rules than most would subscribe to. Rangy battle meanders from ropes to midring and back, girls just licking it up and CRUZ IS HURT! Mouthpiece slides off Penelope's teeth as her mouth lolls open - Virginie is backing up, clouting chin with slinging lefts and rights as Cruz wanders forward. Round ends with Cruz shut down in pain, seated on the ropes, taking a plodding right hand into her trunks as Ledoyen cradles her victim with a loose left arm around the shoulders.

R7: Penelope renews the jab - stamping it against Ledoyen's face and belly, then snapping off the tightest hook in Europe as Virginie constantly wanders in to eat it. Ledoyen back to the slack jawed trogolodyte look as the haymakers add up on her chin - eyes are dim, but legs won't fold - she just keeps stumbling into the punishment. Penelope pays Virginie back for the wrap - using her left to wrap this time and plundering leather downstairs, sawing her right mitt back and forth into Virginie's bottoms as Ledoyen sinks sadly into the ropes.

R8: Cruz punching Virginie at will - slumbering French girl leans forward at the ropes, gets cudgelled to the side by wide right hands and recovers a few steps away only to get sailed into again. Cruz meanwhile is exhausted, lifting punches from her hips like her gloves are filled with wet clay, splattering the fists against Ledoyen's head in a non stop orgy of blockbuster punching. Ledoyen used to Cruz's heat now - she's hurt, but soaking up the shots and by the final minute, it's Virginie storming back as Cruz tries to clinch. Ledoyen licking her fists back and forth into Penelope's thin waist buckles the Spaniard forward while beating her back to mid ring and as Cruz lunges to clinch, she eats a clobbering Ledoyen uppercut off the teeth that puts Penelope on all fours. Cruz now looking spent, beat up - takes 8 and gets out of the round - it's pandemonium in Barcelona as the brunettes stagger mindlessly to their stools.

R9: OH PENELOPE! Cruz gets a second wind, feints in, slips Ledoyen's tired left and crams a desperate right in over the top to put Virginie wobbly butt at the open. Ledoyen reels to the ropes, hopelessly hurt and she covers up as Penelope piles on, pushing, elbowing, low-blowing and clocking her foe sideways to a neutral corner. AGAIN Virginie survives the maelstrom, Cruz runs out of petrol, and the wreckage of Ledoyen starts to punch, hold and abuse her foe back across the ring. Cruz finishes up cowering on the ropes, sobbing as zombie Ledoyen lashes fatigued lefts and rights into the sides and across the back of the Spaniard. Virginie doesn't hear the bell - she is pulled off her foe and sent stumbling to her corner as Cruz is helped to hers.

R10: Crowd on it's feet as the two wiry combatants dredge up their reserves, stand on flat feet and trade clouting blows across the mouth or digging hooks up into the gut. Heart-rending to see the girls reduced to slobbering hulks, each just taking her turn sticking a fist up into a pale belly, or swatting away on an available chin. Both girls stagger, walk each other down, then lean in forehead to forehead to continue the slaughter. Final minute sees both women fall into one another's arms - girls fighting with eyes closed, mouths open - all they can do is clinch and try to walk one another to the ropes to the bell. Comes back a brutal UD10 Penelope Cruz - both women immediately rushed to hospital for dehydration and assorted hurts after a stunning slobberknocker of a fight.

After: No losers here as both girls decided to fight like heavyweights, Ledoyen grimly holding onto consciousness after getting battered unrecognizable through the first 5 rounds in a fight that had spectators oohing and ahhing with almost every punch. Reckless give and take saw both women driven to the verge of collapse - you can't give anything more in a fight than these elegant brawlers did tonight. Rumours circulating of repeated attempts throughout the night by both women to get at one another in their hospital beds - unsubstantiated of course, although the image of Cruz or Ledoyen holding a semi-conscious opponent down and slamming away with exhausted rights persists in less reputable tabloids for several days thereafter.