People may go and see Hobbs & Shaw for a variety of reasons. Maybe they’re Fast and Furious fanatics. Perhaps they love the idea of seeing a couple of bald, semi-coherent middle-aged men punch each other somewhere other than Wetherspoons at 2pm on a Tuesday afternoon. But I will watch it for another reason: because Hobbs & Shaw is shaping up to be one of the most hilariously brittle willy-waving contests in living memory.

In one of the funniest things I’ve ever read, Erich Schwartzel of the Wall Street Journal reveals an endearingly pathetic detail of the Fast and Furious franchise: none of the actors want to lose a fight. Jason Statham has apparently negotiated an agreement with the studio that limits the extent to which he can be beaten up. Dwayne Johnson has also enlisted “producers, editors and fight coordinators” to make sure “he always gives as good as he gets”.

Schwartzel has uncovered some corkers. For example, as it was originally written, there was a scene in The Fate of the Furious (2017) in which Johnson would be lying by the feet of Vin Diesel, but Johnson had it changed so that he sat instead, lest anyone think he is a wimp. Meanwhile, Diesel employs his sister to stand around in rehearsals counting how many times her brother gets punched, to make sure he can still “get his licks back in”. If you go back and re-watch the Fast and Furious films, you’ll notice how rarely anyone actually wins a fight: to appease the demands of all this fragile masculinity, they tend to end as draws, usually stopped by miraculous outside forces. Remember the fight between Statham and Johnson in Furious 7 (2015), which ended mid-brawl when a helicopter fired a missile that destroyed the ground between them? That was because neither actor wanted to be seen to lose.

Bless them. I mean it. Bless their little faces. It’s so sweet to think of Jason Statham and Dwayne Johnson strutting around with their arms greased up like Christmas turkeys, keeping a mental tally of how many punches they each take in order to preserve the gossamer thread of alpha credibility that exists between them and the sentient cloud of Lynx Africa that passes for their audience. No, honestly, it’s adorable.

There are a couple of interesting points, though. First, the no-lose stalemate has become so pronounced that if any bulky up-and-coming actors are willing to specialise in losing fights, they’ll end up being paid a fortune by grateful producers. Second, it is clear we are dealing with some incredibly delicate petals here, so perhaps it would be a good idea to expand the contractual clauses to other, non-violent aspects of their work. Because, sure, they’ve figured out how to make each fight a dance of perfectly balanced tedium which no one ever wins or loses because the actors are so protective of their precious reputations. But there are other opportunities for one-upmanship.

For example, eating. What if there were a restaurant scene in Hobbs and Shaw in which Dwayne Johnson orders a quiche but Jason Statham orders a steak? That would reflect badly on Johnson, and might harm his career to the extent that he would only be offered roles for which he has to do non-macho things like read books or demonstrate empathy. Thus, I propose a new clause whereby, in all eating scenes, Johnson and Statham both have to chow down on equal-sized baguettes filled with broken glass and blood.

Johnson and Statham at the Hobbs & Shaw premiere at the Dolby Theatre, Los Angeles, in July. Photograph: Michael Buckner/Variety/Rex/Shutterstock

And although the Fast and Furious films are as chaste as any made for for the Hallmark television channel, it would be wise to add a sex scene clause, just in case things change. If we see Jason Statham having sex with a woman, someone should be on hand to count the exact number of thrusts and measure the intensity of any ensuing orgasms, so Johnson can replicate the scene later in the film, like a creepy sex echo. The best way to enforce this equality would be to make each sex scene last for exactly three thrusts, during which the female actor yawns distractedly, before the male actor cries and apologises.

Lastly, I don’t know about you, but I can never concentrate on films because I’m always trying to guess which actor has the biggest testicles. Maybe in the next Fast and Furious film, Statham and Johnson can each have their costumes altered so that their testicles are constantly on show. Actually, that would never work because one may have bigger balls than the other. Perhaps let them both wear equal-sized prosthetic testicles on the outsides of their costumes instead. Or better yet, sack the actors and replace them with two giant sets of fake gonads. It’s not like anyone would notice.