a way to make it as special program and forward it into the next stage." On July 3, 2013 the Iron Chefs reunited for an American Chef Special with beef as the secret ingredient. All three Iron Chefs were paired with an American challenger, and then for a fourth round, all six competed. Currently, there are no plans for any more Iron Chef specials. Iron Chef 2012 statistics International editions Iron Chef America Iron Chef USA Around Christmas 2001, the UPN network presented two one-hour episodes of Iron Chef USA hosted by William Shatner as "The Chairman of the American Culinary Academy." Competition took place inside "Kitchen Arena" (built in Garden Arena in the Las Vegas MGM Grand Hotel). Commentary was provided by Michael Burger and Anthony Dias Blue, with floor reporting by Sissy Biggers. The show featured four Iron Chefs: Iron Chef American Todd English (whose specialty is actually Mediterranean food), Iron Chef French Jean Francois Meteigner, Iron Chef Italian Alessandro Stratta, and Iron Chef Asian Roy Yamaguchi. In the show's only two battles, English defeated Kerry Simon in a dungeness crab battle, and Stratta defeated Marcus Samuelsson in a turkey battle. These shows were neither a critical nor popular success, perhaps because the show focused little on cooking—a major part of the Japanese program. The show had a small audience section with bleachers, and the audience yelled relentlessly during the show (sounding much like a sports audience). Shatner walked around the kitchen sampling the more expensive items, the chefs refused to say what they were doing, and the cameras rarely showed the food preparation. Iron Chef America In 2004, Food Network announced that it would air an Iron Chef special, called "Iron Chef America: Battle of the Masters", featuring Sakai and Morimoto dueling with American Iron Chefs Bobby Flay, Mario Batali, and Wolfgang Puck, all Food Network personalities and renowned American celebrity chefs. (Morimoto and Flay battled in two previous Iron Chef specials that were made after the original series aired.) The specials featured Alton Brown as the announcer and Mark Dacascos playing the role of The Chairman (in the storyline, this Chairman is the nephew of Takeshi Kaga). The show received high ratings and rave reviews and in October 2004, and Food Network began taping weekly episodes that premiered starting in January 2005. Some changes were made to the show, most notably replacing Puck with Morimoto as