On Saturday his English Premier League soccer team Arsenal played a scoreless draw at Manchester United that allowed hated Man U to clinch the league title and celebrate in front of the Gunners.

On Tuesday his Nuggets missed 12 free throws and blew a 13-point lead in a 105-103 Game 1 loss to the Lakers in the Western Conference Finals.

And all week long Kroenke was beaten like a pinata by Vince McMahon, somehow losing a public relations battle with one of the most loathsome figures in American pop culture, World Wrestling Entertainment's loud-mouthed charlatan.

The trouble began when Kroenke Sports Enterprises assumed the Pepsi Center would be available on May 25 and rented it to McMahon for a Monday Night Raw event, confirming the date as late as April 15.

Even though the Nuggets had finished strong down the stretch, winning 14 of 17 heading into the playoffs, you could hardly blame Kroenke Sports Enterprises for assuming the arena would be free in late May. Denver had been bounced in the first round of the playoffs for five straight years.

When the double-booking became official thanks to the Nuggets' dispatching of the Hornets and Mavericks, Kroenke had a choice: provide his Pepsi Center for a major sporting event to be played by the NBA team he owns or honor a contract to provide a venue for the goofy scripted spectacle called professional wrestling that stubbornly clings to the fringe of real sports (and gets admittedly huge cable ratings).

In other words, Kroenke had no choice.

But that didn't matter to McMahon. Paul Andrews, executive vice-president of Kroenke Sports Enterprises may have wanted to "resolve the situation amicably," but there was no way Vince was going to let that happen. And let all that free marketing get frittered away with a phone call or handshake? Are you kidding?

Once it became clear that his event would have to find a new night or a new venue McMahon went into frothy overdrive, behaving as if Kroenke had insulted his family. (Remember, only Vince McMahon gets to drag his daughter around the ring by her hair, dammit!)

McMahon opened with a double knee face-breaker on ESPN, saying Kroenke should be arrested for impersonating a good businessman. (Though one might argue that selling the same product twice and then screwing half your consumers is the quintessential American business move.)

Next McMahon delivered the pump handle slam. "The fans in Denver had a lot more faith in making the playoffs than the owner." (Technically Kroenke already knew the Nuggets were in the playoffs when the contract was confirmed in mid-April, so any lack of faith would have to apply to his team advancing to the conference finals.)

Then, on Thursday in Times Square, McMahon went Jimmy "Super Fly" Snuka on Kroenke, flying off the turnbuckle to bury him in a hail of insults, then triumphantly announcing Monday Night Raw's move to L.A.'s Staples Center for two events next week.

Kroenke, whose full name is Enos Stanley Kroenke, often goes by E. Stan Kroenke, an awkward handle that McMahon took great joy in belittling. "I never trusted anyone with an initial for a first name and now I know why," he cracked.

When Kroenke was building his empire he probably never dreamed he'd one day be a WWE patsy, but McMahon seized the opportunity to make the billionaire an unwitting participant in one of his more ingenious promotions.

I'd say Kroenke had emerged from his scrap with McMahon battered, bruised and cauliflower-eared, but he hasn't emerged at all. The 61-year-old entrepreneur has remained above or below or beside the fray, letting Mr. Andrews release occasional statements on the matter.

But it's time for Kroenke to call the bully's bluff. He should accept the 62-year-old McMahon's challenge to step into the steel cage.

Sure, McMahon's deltoids and trapezius look like they're straight from Gold's Gym by way of the pharmacy, but Kroenke would have a secret weapon were he to climb into the ring with McMahon.

Kroenke's wife Ann Walton Kroenke is a Wal-Mart heiress, worth $2.6 billion herself.

If Vince is happily willing to drag his daughter Stephanie McMahon around the ring by her hair to make a buck, then Kroenke should have no qualms about enlisting his wife to avenge his manhood.

Here's how it would go down. Once Vince and E. Stan agree to a venue -- the Pepsi Center, perhaps -- and get everything arranged, Kroenke should deliver McMahon a revised script for their meeting.

In it, Kroenke would humiliate McMahon with a series of armbar takedowns and cobra clutch legsweeps, eliciting an "I'm sorry, Mr. Kroenke," before pinning him. Why would McMahon agree to this? Because he loves selling WWE merchandise at Wal-Mart. And because it would garner spectacular ratings.

Even in defeat, Vince McMahon would have the last laugh.

He always does.

And he will once again this Monday when he slaps around a Kroenke look-alike at the Staples Center.