Pay-Per-View Verdict In

“The People’s Court” is now in session. Rusty, the evidence, please …

The guilty parties: Showtime Event Television and KingVision Pay Per View, in cahoots with the nation’s cable TV operators.

The crime: Extortion, price gouging, inhumane treatment to U.S. currency … whatever you want to call it.

The charge: $39.95 by mid-August, or anywhere from $45.95 to $59.95 for impulse buyers.

The motive: Simply trying to grant pay-per-viewers access to witness Mike Tyson’s prison break/ coming out party Saturday night.

The sentence: Listening to Don “The Lyin”’ King list the qualifications of an opponent named “Hurricane” Peter McNeeley, who we think lives in some kind of cocoon of horror.

The reaction: “People say $50 is too much … if you are a fight fan, you must watch this fight … for $50, $60, $100,” says Mitch Albom on Sunday morning’s ESPN “Sports Reporters.”

“I’m going to pay; I’m curious to see how much he has left,” Mike Lupica lurches in from the other chair, nearly jarring Dick Schaap’s coffee mug from his hand.

“To me, it’s worth 50 bucks and more … it’s one of life’s great one-act plays … it’s a people-on-the-street fight,” spews Ferdie Pacheco, the vocabulary fright doctor. He, of course, won’t have to pay - he’ll be ringside contaminating SET’s blow-by-blow broadcast.

All of this makes about as much sense as a Mentos commercial.

The scenario is simple. We have a snarling, violent manimal with an intimidating stare who’s been captured, locked up, paraded before the frenzied public, and, with the spotlight nearly blinding him, wants simply to be accepted as one of the Almighty’s sensitive, caring creatures who’d never intentionally hurt a female he cared about.

It seems far cheaper to rent “King Kong” than to double your August cable bill if you’re that interested in whether a beauty named McNeeley will get killed by the beast.

The ninth wonder of the world (the eighth is King’s hairpiece) is not how this freak show will play itself out. The latest act of prestidigitation from Don King - has he joined O.J.’s defense team yet? - should not only insult us Only in Americans, but make us wonder if there are no limits for these WWF-type hypefests.

Examine at the reasons we’ve been told by the endearing King and his media partners why this event is not to be missed at any price:

The historical factor

“It’s the dawn of a new era in boxing,” says Pacheco.

I only get up before dawn for a tee time at Riviera.

The curiosity factor

Maybe this isn’t Hugh Grant doing the “Tonight Show” in his first post-love-encounter appearance.

Does the phrase “curiosity killed the catatonic TV sports viewer who had too much time on his hands” snap anything in you rubber necks?

Monica Seles and Michael Jordan made comebacks this year that weren’t on pay-per-view. What morons are managing their careers?

The high-drama factor

“Maybe it’s not the fight of the century,” concedes SET executive producer Jay Larkin, “but it’s the event of year.”

Or at least fodder for a movie of the week.

The only soap opera I care about is “Young and the Restless,” only because I keep thinking it’s about the 49ers’ quest for another Super Bowl.

The sociological factor

NOW supporters and sexual-abuse victims have every reason to get hysterical over the hypocrisy and corruptness over Tyson’s big payday so quickly after his career in punching up license plates. But not now.

A slightly more effective form of protest would be to not call attention to the fight at all.

The Don King factor

(Also known as the Larry King factor).

Everyone’s talking about it so it must be a big deal. That’s how Soupy Sales and pie throwing became popular in the ‘60s.

Don “Cha-Ching” King, louder than one of Jon Miller’s ties on ESPN “Sunday Night Baseball,” must have a volume control somewhere.

And because this charade involves King, one of life’s recurring natural disasters, one would think we’d get some relief under the act of God clause in our contracts. Instead, we suffer in the bile. Insurance companies won’t even write Don King-damage policies any more.

Try singing this stanza of the Battle Hymn of the Banana Republic if you feel shackled by King’s verbage:

Mine eyes have seen the glory of another Don King jive,

He has wrangled Mikey Tyson; he’s found someone for the dive,

He has duped the faithful viewers, fifty-nine and ninety-five,

His hair weave marches on …

Feast all you want on King’s cold-cut platter of baloney. Or switch over to Gayle Gardner talking fat-free deserts on the Artichoke Channel. You do have a choice.

Now’s the time for all good men to factor in reality.

The lacking-blood-flow-to-the-brain people who pay for this are the same who bet on exhibition football, gamble on the winner of “The NFL Quarterback Challenge,” and think Art Schlichter belongs in the Hall of Fame.

No offense, but I’m a bigger idiot than you. I’d just rather use that kind of spare pocket change for Prozac refills.

The crime here is that so many will pitch in the sand dollars to keep King’s shell game alive. Pay-per-view continues to flourish and astonish the mentally sane.

What’s to stop this wealthy King from someday showering the NFL with dead presidents for the rights to a Super Bowl, and then serving it to an entertainment starved audience willing to pay?

As for this P.T. Barnum Vegas lounge act …

When an immovable force (Tyson) meets a resistible object (King), something has to give. Too often, it’s my better judgment.

So, with brief hesitation, I ask: What’s the cable company’s phone number, and to whom do I make the check out to?