Knives will fly and blood will flow — this is not your mother’s cooking show.

Rapper and producer Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs has created Celebrity Cooking Showdown, a five-night special on NBC that matches three well-known chefs with nine celebrities who’ll compete in an Iron Chef-style kitchen combat.

Among the so-called stars are singer Patti LaBelle, supermodel Gabrielle Reece, football great Tony Gonzalez, as well as actors Alison Sweeney, Tom Arnold and Cindy Margolis.

World-renowned chef Wolfgang Puck, who helped train his assigned stars in the kitchen, says Celebrity Cooking Showdown makes Japan’s Iron Chef looked like a funeral.

“When we taped the first show there was such an electricity and so much excitement going on — it was amazing,” he says.

“We had a lot of fire, we had blood, we had everything. I actually thought that we could have had a show called Finger Food — even I cut myself.”

During each of the first three episodes, three stars will go head-to-head in an attempt to win over the taste-buds of judges and advance to Thursday’s live cook-off.

At that point, viewers will have the chance to vote based solely on presentation and the winner will be announced on Friday’s finale.

While some of the celebrities were experienced chefs before filming began, Puck says others couldn’t even boil water.

In order to even the playing field, each was put through cooking boot camp.

“I learned that teaching people the right way, gets them into cooking really fast. Even a guy like Tom Arnold, who never cooked in his life, said, ‘You know what? I’m going to make this chocolate cake for my wife Shelby … then I’m going to get lucky for sure.’

“They are really enthusiastic and excited about doing it. That’s what, I think, makes this show successful.”

Executive producer Ben Silverman says supermodel Naomi Campbell, who was forced off the show when she was charged with assaulting her assistant, will be welcome if the special is turned into a series.

“She has clearly a lot of stuff going on in her life,” he says. “But … hopefully she’ll be on our next series because she likes to cook.”

Celebrity Cooking Showdown premieres tonight on NBC at 10 p.m. and will air tomorrow through Friday at 9 p.m.