World Wide Web Fights Presents
What is Grudge Match?
What is Grudge Match?

The Scenario

Phil the Announcer: And now the producer of The Running Man, and everyone's favorite showman, Damon Killian!
Damon: Thank you. You're beautiful. I love you. Thank you. Shhhhhhh... it's show time!
[Stage lights go up - more applause]
Damon: We have one hell of a show for you tonight! Not one runner, not two... but seven!
[Audience gasps, then applauds]
Damon: Phil, please introduce tonight's guest runners!

Phil: Will do, Damon! Our first runner is on death row for attempting to gas to death the entire city of Gotham. Jack Napier!
Audience: Boooooo!
Damon: Save it for sweeps week, Joker!
Phil: Our second runner comes to us all the way from Australia! It's Mad Max, serving 17 life sentences for sand smuggling, excessive homoeroticism, and furthering Tina Turner's career.
Audience: Boooooo!
Mad Max: They'll never take our freedom!
[One of the guards shoves a rag in his mouth]
Phil: Next, facing numerous counts of attempted world domination: Mr. Evil!
Audience: Boooooo!
Dr. Evil: It's Doctor Evil. I didn't spend six years in Evil Medical School to be called "mister," thank you very much.
Phil: So sorry, Mr. Evil. Not to be outdone, our next runner faces numerous counts of attempted universal domination, and even has a better title! Welcome Emperor Palpatine!
Audience: Boooooo!
Palpatine: Strike me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Dr. Evil: Excuse me, but I'd like to start calling myself Emperor Evil now.
Phil: Our fifth runner was found guilty of several counts of attempted murder with a ladder and assault with deadly playground equipment: Jackie Chan!
Audience: Boooooo!
Jackie Chan: You are devoted only to yourself. You're a shame of being a game show host! You dishonor your father's name!
Damon: Don't talk about my daddy, now. That's out of bounds.
Phil: Next we have one of the smartest men in the world, but he wasn't smart enough to not get caught! Guilty of repeated moving violations and breaking the Second Law of Thermodynamics, Professor Stephen Hawking!
Audience: Boooooo!
Hawking: Not only does God play dice, but he sometimes throws them where they cannot be seen.
Damon: Oooh. Real deep, Ironsides.
Phil: And our final runner is the most despicable of them all. Recently found guilty of the unimaginable crime of stealing Damon Killian's tuna fish sandwich! Hobbes the Tiger!
Audience: Booooooooo! Hissssssss! Booooooooooo!
Hobbes: Tigers are kinda stupid that way.

Damon: Now, all of these runners could have stayed in prison and paid the penalty, but instead they volunteered for The Running Man... and now have a chance at our fabulous prize of a full pardon. But there's only one pardon available, so you have to finish first. The prize for second place is an immediate execution of the ultimate sentence: death!
Audience: Ooooooh!
Damon: Of course, there's nothing in the rules that says somebody has to finish, is there?
Audience: Hahahahaha!
Damon: You know how this works. The game zone is divided into four hundred square blocks, left over from the big quake of naught-seven. They've got to go through all four game quads in three hours or less, and they're going to need every second because you know who's on their tail!
Audience: The Stalkers!
Damon: And you know what happens then.
Audience: Anything goes!
Damon: Right! Without further ado, it's time to start running!
[The seven contestants are clamped into vacuum sleds.]
Damon: On your marks... get set... Go! Go!
[Applause and cheering as the runners are sucked into the tubes towards the game zone]

Damon: Edith Wiggins, come on down!
Edith: Eeeeek!
Damon: Now Edith, we need you to give us the name of the stalker that we send out to hunt down those desperate criminals. You've got nine to choose from.
Audience: Storm! Cyclops! Rogue! Wolverine!
Edith: I don't know... they're all so good.
Audience: Gambit! Jubilee! Beast! Jean Grey! Professor X!
Edith: Oh, my. What if I pick the wrong one?
Damon: Not to worry dear. When a stalker gets knocked out, we'll just send out another one.
Edith: O.K. Well, I'll have to go with my favorite then--

Phil: Who will Edith pick? Which runner will be the first to make it all the way through and win the full pardon, or will they all be defeated by our mighty X-Men stalkers? Find out after these commercial messages!

Jackie Chan, Mad Max, Hobbes, Emperor Palpatine, Dr. Evil, The Joker, Stephen Hawking, X-Men

Jackie Chan
Mad Max
Emperor Palpatine
Dr. Evil
The Joker
Stephen Hawking

The Commentary

Following our Tournament of Champions tradition, we will hold off on any 8-way commentary to allow you, the viewer, more leeway in your voting and reponses, as well as to maintain our own sanity.

The Results

TOC VI Champ: Jackie Chan

Jackie Chan (1185 - 25.0%)



Hobbes (1174 - 24.7%)


X-Men (670 - 14.1%)

Emperor Palpatine

Emperor Palpatine (497 - 10.4%)

Dr. Evil

Dr. Evil (402 - 8.5%)

Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking (331 - 7.0%)

Mad Max

Mad Max (296 - 6.2%)

The Joker

The Joker (194 - 4.1%)

Some of you still haven't figured out that we can tell when you cheat.
Even though Hobbes lead on the voting page, and even though people cheated for Jackie Chan,
slightly more people cheated for Hobbes (and a few others here and there as well).
Once the tainted votes were thrown out, Jackie came away the winner.
A note for all you repeat cheaters (you know who you are): please stop.
We've never had to block people from voting, but we will.

To view the TOC VI Nomination vote totals, click here

Current Match | Related & Similar Matches
History Section | Tell a friend about this match

Voter Comments

This was the SECOND largest response file ever, so Iron Fist, etc.


My prediction: Hobbes will win by default. Wolverine, ever the impatient one, decides to ignore the audience member chosen to select the first chaser. Raising his middle claw to Edith Wiggins, who continues blubbering her indecision, he barks out a "later, bub" to Damon and dashes after the contestants. The Joker will be the first hunted down by Wolverine. Since he comes from the Batman movie, he'll head for the first volatile chemicals factory to confront the good guys (the favorite place for the big showdown with the good guys), and set up a bunch of silly traps that Wolverine will hack and slash through with ease. However, the factory, having been damaged in the earthquake, has mixed its chemicals into an even more volatile goop than usual. When he gets beat in the typical batman style, he hops into a vat, hoping to mutate his spleen into a seductive, penguin-like, plant-controlling monstrosity obsessed with riddles. As he falls into the vat, he pulls the string on his laughing bag. However, the chemical interaction between the clown make-up on his face and the chemicals in giant, chain-reaction explosion that takes out the entire first game quad and Wolverine in a massive chemical fire inferno.

Of course, this means that any runners remaining in the first quadrant have gone the way of the flame-broiled whopper. There being plenty of time that has already expired, only the painfully slow contenders are torched.

Mr. Hawking, ambling along in his chair, sees the fiery tidal wave coming towards him, but figures that, since the second law of thermodynamics doesn't apply to him, he has nothing to fear. He contemplates this error for a few milliseconds while he becomes a well-done meal on wheels for the surviving rats, who have the good sense to hide underground. In his final moment on this earth, he discovers a new physics law that will revolutionize life as we know it, or at least make a lot of money for him in a book targeted at the ignorant masses before it is proven wrong. Oh, well.

Emperor Palpatine, without his shuttle, his red imperial guards, or Vader to protect him, is toast. Realizing that the end is near, he decides to go out with a bang, and uses his cheesy lighning powers to fry the contestant in front of him: Dr. Evil. He always hated Dr Evil for the constant impersonation and stolen lines; payback time, baby!

Mad Max isn't slow, but he gets toasted, too. Why? He finds an old semi in quad 1 and decides to run down his competitors on the way to freedom, but needs to find gas, or at least a bunch of pigs eating refried beans. That leads him to the volatile chemical factory, where he burns up, contemplating how his death mirrors the nuclear holocaust that burned up his world.

Escaping from the charred charnnel house of quad 1 are Hobbes and Jackie Chan. They're going neck and neck all the way through quad 2, when the next X-man finally catches up with them. And it's Beast! He's furious; at first, he thought himself above these non-intellectual games, but the loss of fellow-genius Stephen Hawking made him madder than a worm-eating, satanic nympho on the Jerry Springer show.

Jackie and Hobbes race by the city dump, and Jackie stops. The city dump is the only insanely complicated urban environment he hasn't had any cinematic combat in. Drawn by the many random objects, piles, cranes, and power tools, he decides to stop there and challenge his chaser.

What follows could be a great grudge match in itself, and I'm not going to decide who wins. The fight takes a long time, and while Beast and Jackie are going at it, Hobbes takes a liesurely stroll across the finish line, licking the last of his tuna sandwich off his fingers. Hobbes always has the advantage in games like this. Grudge matches by rule take place in weird environments with weird rules, and given Hobbes' experience with Calvinball, he was bound to do it. After crossing the finish-line, he hops into his transmogrifier, turns into a Sabertooth tiger, and eats the studio audience.

- Hey, I know this was long, but it beats doing calculus!

Silver Grudgie ROTW Silver Medal GrudgieTM

Okay guys, seriously, this is a no brainer. First of all, the X-men are being used as the hunters. Since most of the competitors aren't evil mutants, they fall outside their jurisdiction. Besides, aside from Wolverine, they normally don't hunt down and kill people. I'll just chalk this up to mind control. First time they try to kill someone, Jean Gray will realize "hero's don't kill!" and break the effects of the mind control. They'll then go on to attack Damon, who will turn out to be a disguised Apocolypse. Ratings triple from the following Mutant Smackdown(TM) (on pay-per-view for only $29.95!).

As for the competitors... Even if the X-men don't attack them, they're still having to make it through a hostile environment filled with death traps, in addition to trying to kill each other. With the exception of Mad Max, Hobbes, and Jackie Chan, they all fall under the designation of "feeble, crusty old white men." You think any of them would last in the bad neighborhoods of a major Metropolitan city for more than five seconds? Hobbes, without Calvin to power his body through his imagination, is just a stuffed tiger. He ain't going anywhere. Even if he could, he's used to living and walking in a two dimensional environment. First time he needs to make a 90 degree turn when walking anywhere, and he's stuck.

This comes down to Jackie Chan vs. Mad Max. The rules of their two different genres create a problem here. In a lot of martial arts comics/movies, one martial artist can take down an entire room of thugs with machine guns without being shot. In the hardcore actions flicks, people like Mad Max tend to just shoot (or punch) the Awesome Martial Artist(TM) with no difficulty, which is supposed to provide some comic relief, as well as show what a badass they are. So, I'm going to say Mad Max is going to win, if for no reason than most of his fans will vote for him because they think he's got a cute butt, or they're a member of the Braveheart Jihad (there is no Jihad).

- Shadowknight

Bronze Grudgie ROTW Bronze Medal GrudgieTM

This grudge match takes place on The Running Men. The match the Hobbes won was a race. It seems to me that races and running would involve similar skills. Not to mention evasion. Hobbes is a Tiger(tm) (incidently, this means that, unless he goes blind, he has the Eye of The Tiger.) Tigers survive by hunting in the jungle, which they acomplish by hiding and ambush. If anything, Hobbes will account for a couple of X-men before sprinting off over the horizon. But it's not like he has any real competition. Let's give them a run over (literaly)...

Jackie Chan - He is unable to win, as he has a Saturday Morning Cartoon on The WB!(tm). This means, in short, that he sucks. Jubilee and Jade, Jackie's Perky Neice, get in a catfight over Darth Maul, thus drawing the attention of the other X's.

Mad Max - Sheesh. This guy wore black leather in the middle of the Australian Outback? I.Q.-wise, I'd say this ranks just above Bill & Ted(tm) and just below library paste. None of the X-men will even have to do anything; he'll just wander onto one of Cyclop's RedWhatEverTheHeckItIs beams(tm). Just for fun, Jean will give him a hallucination that he's being stalked by Tina's Hair.

Stephen Hawking - What? WHAT?! He can't even walk, How's he supposed to run? Prof. X beats him up and steals his fancy chair(tm).

Dr. Evil - He might have a chance, were he not Shrek(tm). As it is, he will immediatly meet up with Eddie Murphy, and won't be able to get rid of him. And it's kind of hard to be inconspicuous when you're accompanied by a Loud Motormouth Who Thinks He Is Funny(tm). He goes down in the first zone.

The Joker - Halfway through the course, he gets interrupted by Mark Hamil, who's wining about how HE's the Joker. Jack gasses him, but the commotion attracts the attention of Gambit, who suggests a game of cards. Unable to resist a facet of his own gimmick, the Joker accepts. The Cajun deals. Boom.

Emperor Palpatine (If that's really his name) - Using The Force(tm), He succesfully evades all his pursuers and is about to exit the final area, when he sees a small crowd moving in his direction. For, in defeating Q, he awakened another force. A force more dread than Cthulhu, more unpredictable than English Soccer Hooligans, more single- minded than The Braveheart Jihad (there is no Jihad). Trekkies. With Q defeated, they knew there was no way that Star Trek could ever win a match. So they set out to seek revenge... The Emperor fights his way past them, (They're just flabby nerdboys after all.) when he feels a light tap on his temple. He turns and gets Fried(tm) by his own purple lightning, stolen by Rouge. And, adding the ultimate insult to injury, she has the Emporer's own weight in chiuahuahs clean up the mess.

Hobbes goes home with a shiny new WWWF Bowl Cup, and the X-men receive some lovely parting gifts.

- Antidisestablishmentairianism

Hands down Hobbes.

Sure, some people say Hobbes is one step shy of being a sissy doll. If he wasn't a tiger, he'd be geekier than Linus' blue blanket.

Children are cunning little shits. Hobbes' powers have only ever been limited by Calvin's imagination. All the other characters are created by dumb adults.

- Mad Mario

This is a contest? Emperor Palpatine can read people's thoughts from several light-years away, produce more energy than ConEd, and even defeated AN OMNIPOTENT BEING on this website! (Ok, Q is from Star Trek, but still not too shabby!) I see two possibilites here:

1. Palpatine waves his hand at his competitors - "You are my servant." [Unlucky competitors] - "I am your servant."

What else can they do? The Force is not with them.

2. Palpatine blasts everyone and everything within ten city blocks with lethal energy, then pulls out a communicator and says "Begin landing your troops. Wipe them out. All of them." and a million Stormtroopers land and overwhelm everybody. (He's Emperor of an ENTIRE GALAXY, after all.)

Of course the Emperor would come up with something better, like a few dozen clones of Darth Maul, but the outcome would not be in doubt.

- Trey

Hobbes. He's got it in the bag. Here's why:
  • He's a Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat!
  • Hobbes has already stolen Damon Killian's tuna fish sandwich - the show's creator and mastermind.
  • Hobbes has the intellect of a seventeenth century philosopher.
  • Hobbes exists through Calvin's overactive imagination. He's superintelligent, has the will to fight, and will show no mercy. This kid is twisted, just drive by his house during the winter and check out the snow men.

He'll run all of his opponents - Dr. Evil is a buffoon, the Joker is spastic, Mad Max will be busy admiring Cyclops's form-fitting costume, Stephen Hawking is actually dead, Jackie Chan will pull his groin on the nearest step-ladder, and Emporer Palpatine will be trying to turn Wolverine to the darkside. His cat-like (nay, completely cat) reflexes and speed will send Hobbes ahead of the pack, evading the best that the X-Men have to offer.

- Spaceman Spiff

Dr. Evil will take this one. He has a giant laser and a minature clone! What could be more deadly than that! If those don't work he can travel back in time in his "Big Boy" ship and kill all of these foes when they're on the crapper! (Have you ever wondered if the Emperor ever craps?)

- Josh

Top 5 reasons why Hobbes will win, and possibly even have time to go back and maul a few competitors:
5. Hobbes is a Tiger, tigers run fast.
4. Tigers is a cartoon character. Meaning he's not limited
to "reality", like all other competitors.
3. Hobbes is an acronym for
Orange and
Black tiger
2. You've seen Hobbes play football. Clavin's at the 10, he's at the
other 10, and still manages to tackle him.
1. There is always a tuna fish sandwich at the end, and he knows that.

- Spooner

Hmmm.... Let's see. I have to give it to the X-men here. This is why. The X-men have already defeated some type of each of the same archtypes as they are up against now.


The Joker: Crazy comic book villian. X-men: too many to mention.
Dr. Evil: Comediac Meglomainiac. X-men: See above.
Hobbes: Large man-like cat X-men: Sabretooth, Feral etc.
Jackie Chan: Insane Bad-Ass Martial Artist X-men: Pierce, Deathbird
Mad Max: Post-apocalypitic Warrior X-men: Genesis, amongst others
Emperor Palpintine: Would-be Galactic Overlord of Immense Power X-men: Apocalypse, amongst others
Stephen Hawking: Big Time Genius (TM) X-men: Dark Beast, Bolivar Trask, etc. With all this Experience behind them, how can they lose? They can't!

- Sliverthorn

With the setting being based on an action movie, the only contestants who are really in their elements are Jackie Chan and Mad Max. And it doesn't take a genius to tell you that pitting an Australian terrorist against Jackie Chan is like pitting a jelly donut against Roseanne in a cage match.

- Vermin Boy

I was going to do a long, involved Tale of the Tape(tm), when I realized that I had overlooked two critical facts.

One: the meek shall inherit the earth.
Two: "They've got to go through all four game quads in three hours or less, and they're going to need every second because you know who's on their tail! Audience: The Stalkers!" The answer became clear to me.

Who is not only the fastest and most agile of the contenders, but also the most unassuming? Hobbes! He's a stuffed animal, for crying out loud! But have you seen him run? He's an orange blur! The way I see it, Hobbes either gets through the quads in 15 minutes, or Jubilee finds him and, squealing with joy at seeing a cute stuffed tiger wearing jams, takes him home with her.

- Wakefire

Hank McCoy is a scientist, so he heads out, picks up Hawking, and runs him, piggyback style, to the finish line out of professional courtesy. It's a victory for science.

- Inspectah Mac

Hobbes. He survived Calvinball. He can survive anything.

- Gretel

Being that this is a "tournament" of champions, I present to you the order of elimination, in round robin fashion:

1.) First to go is the Emporer, being that he...well, should not figure into this match, as, in a righteous, competent reality (I know, I know...oxymoron) Q would have blow him oh...about 200 dimensions away. (Bitter? No, I'm not bitter. You wouldn't be bitter if you were an OMNIPOTENT being done in by hordes of belly-scratching Star Wars fanboys, would you?!?)

2.) Next offed is the good Doctor. While Hawking was an early dark- horse in this battle, I uncovered 5 words that spell his demise: "Episode #152 - 'Descent Part I'. That's right folks...Dr. Hawking once guest-starred on an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. And, as the old Grudge Match adage goes, Star Trek Cannot Win. Unless, of course, you happen to be omnipotent or fly around in a ship resembling a Rubik's Cube From Hell (TM).

3.) Hobbes does well for himself until security apprehends Calvin, who was found trying to seal all but one escape route with several cubic pounds of Bubble Yum (TM). His only assistance gone, Hobbes soon finds himself game for Beast.

4.) The X-Men crew is forced to abandon when Beast gets sick and begins coughing up strange orange and black hairballs and moaning something about being "tuna intolerant".

5.) Mad Max lets loose with the cry of "freedom!" and is trampled to death by hordes of rabid Scottish Soccer Hooligans (TM). His head is then mounted atop the London Bridge.

6.) Jackie Chan, having little to no props to beat people up with, radios the L.A.P.D. in an attempt to locate his partner, Chris Tucker. Unfortunately, recent strikes in LA have left many cops without work, and forced to work as "stalkers" themselves. Jackie falls victim to the old "Indiana Jones" malady, which states: "Man with Kung Fu no match against Big Honking Ass Guns (TM)".

7.) Dr. Evil, certain of victory, whips out a hidden remote control. The floor opens up to reveal...the BIG BOY SHUTTLE! Dr. Evil and Mr. Bigglesworth (who is also a runner based upon his reported co- conspiracy with Hobbes in the tuna-running incendent) board and prepare to lift off when Dr. Evil notices that the airlock in the cockpit has sealed up and begun to fill with...

8.) ...SMYLEX GAS!!! One does not keep the Batman on his toes without being several moves ahead, as was the Joker in this case. The entire arena is gassed.

Days later, the Joker appears on "The Running Man" as the new host, with the lovely Harley Quinn as his Vanna. Strange...the audience doesn't seem to be making much noise. Or doing much of anything, in fact. But at least they appear SOOOO incandescently happy...

- RoboGoober98

Okay, I've witheld comments long enough. I used to comment alla' the dang-blasted time, but lately I've had writer's (responder's?) block... I missed rooting for the Croc Hunter and I failed to go commercial, but how can I pass up this little annual ditty? Here's the ones who get taken out early:

Hobbes-- realizes people are watching him and reverts back to "stuffed" mode. Escapes unharmed, but is kept under constant supervision, meaning he's stuck as a cute li'l stuffed tiger 'till nigh doomsday... or the sequel.
Emporer Palpatine-- yeah, he's got "the force" yadda yadda yadda, but he's like, what? a BILLION years old? He no doubt secretly covers all his furniture in plastic and owns 68 cats. He also probably smells REALLY bad. I don't think he'd last very long against any of the X-Men-- even Artie and/or Leech... let alone Q (okay, I'll let it drop).
Dr. Evil-- Yeah, he's funny, but formidable? Not really. He doesn't have any advantages here. What's he gonna do? Talk about his shorn scrotum and his dysfunctional relationship with Scott? Eh... He's just woefully outmatched.

This leaves: Mad Max, Jackie Chan, the Joker, Prof. Stephen Hawking, and the X-Men. Well, let's look at this from a few different views and rate the remaining contestants... 5 is the best, 0 is the worst (duh).

Power: Mad Max has a gun-thing or something and cool post- apocalyptic thingamajaggers. 3 Jackie Chan has martial arts and crazy Steve Irwin-esque insanity, as well as alla' those damned magic talismans. 4 The Joker has taken on the likes of Wonder Woman, Spider-Man, Superman, and of course, Batman using only his insanity and some gadgetry. Not to mention he's gained nigh-omnipotence not once, not twice, not thrice, but um... many, many times. 5 Prof. Stephen Hawking has tried to figure out GOD. MATHEMATICALLY. I can't even balance my checkbook. 5 The X-Men have stood up to Galactus, Dark Phoenix, Thanos, and other uber-powered Marvel Universe denizens. 5 Okay, say that the power factor edged out Jackie and Mad Max. Now, there's Joker, Hawking, and X-Men....

Intellect: Joker outsmarts the world's greatest detective time and time again. He also easily escapes from some of the most sophisticate prisons/asylums/etc. and has matched wits against those much more dangerous than he... and lived. 5 Hawking is so smart, he don't need no steenking paragraph to tell ya how smart he is! THAT'S how smart he is!.... or something. Now I'm all confused. The X-Men don't even know their own backstories... their history and future are constantly rewritten. There are some smarties on the team, but there are some real dumbells, too. 3 This leaves Joker vs. Hawking in a breathtaking run to the end...

Joker does what comes naturally and tries to kill the wheelchaired genius-- only to discover he's been duped! Hawking actually finished 3.67593 hours before Joker caught up with his holographic decoy. Y'see, as evidenced in the Simpsons, Prof. Hawking has tons of gadgetry in his little wheelchair-- not to mention he NEVER makes a mistake... something not even the Joker can admit to. Still, Joker pulls a fast one on the guards and releases Smilex, killing the guards, studio audience, and that Richard Dawson guy. Then, all the contestants decide to team up and fight crime in a future time... hmmm... perhaps I shouldn't have eaten all those spoiled clams.... Ah well.

- Noel Schornhorst (the idiot)

The key strategy to winning "The Running Man" is that headlong action ALWAYS loses. Ah-nuldt beat the Stalkers because he used his noggin to outsmart them first.

So look at these contestants: ALL of them suffer from extreme testosterone poisoning... except for one.

This edition of "The Running Man" ends with an electric whirring breaking the silence, as Stephen Hawking rolls his wheelchair over the heap of corpses of contestants and X-Men. It takes him an additional 15 hours to maneuver through all four gaming quads, but as the sole survivor he wins by default (and gets the bonus Stalker contract from Killian).

- Chris 'Jedi' Knight, minor-league Stalker

Well, the fact that Steven Hawking has appeared on Star Trek (and not as a bad guy [played poker with Newton, Einstien, and Data on the Holodeck [tm, Paramount Pictures], and was winning until a red-alert [tm, Gene Roddenberry] interrupted the game]) and won a Grudge Match means one of either two things:

(a) - His Grudge Match was held in the presence of the Infinite Improbability Generator (or Heart of Gold [tm, some smarty-pants janitor]). Therefore, we may conclude that either he or a fan of his has the Heart of Gold on his/her/its person. Therefore, as the most Improbable canditate to win a footrace, Dr. Hawking has this Grudge Match in the bag. -or-
(b) - Dr. Hawking does not need to obey the Laws of Physics [tm, Sir Isaac Newton]. Since it is merely the Laws of Physics [tm], specifically Relativity [tm, Dr. Albert Einstein], which prohibits supra-luminous (faster-that-light [tm, about 75% of all science- fiction authors who have ever lived]) travel, Dr. Hawking flouts the Laws of Physics and travels faster than the speed of light to the finish line, arriving literally before the race has begun and before he has left the starting line.

Either way, the Good Doctor [tm, whoever first came up with the phrase] wins the race

- James

One needs only to look at the Coolness Factor (TM). The way I see it, the contestants break down in this order, counting backwards from lamest to coolest:

7. Stephen Hawking is definitely the least cool. As much as I hate to hack on a Real Person (TM), and as much as his book was good enough to cause me to blow a frontal lobe, neither he nor it is cool. Not even any cool lines.
6. Hobbes is at best the second-least cool. Sure, he is a tiger, but he has got to be the cutest tigers of all time, even surpassing Tigger Cute (TM). The only reason he beats Hawking is because he has a few cool lines every now and then.
5. Although I hesitate to disparage a Fellow Canadian (TM), Dr. Evil comes next. This is a man who has to -- I think I got this right -- DRINK the cool of another man in order to be cool himself. He scores a few more points than the others because of a few cool lines and, of coarse, the Evil Laugh (TM).
4. The Joker. Now we're getting into cool territory. This man was in one of the GOOD Batman movies. Also, its Jack Nicholson. These factors would weigh heavily in The Joker's favor if it were not for two things: A. He's essentially an Evil Clown (TM). B. His Evil Laugh (TM) is really just an automated Bag-O-Laughs (TM).
3. The Emperor is getting pretty cool. He has an Evil Laugh (TM) which would curdle even Jabba's blood. Also, he has the coolest lines so far, uttered articulately and nonchalantly. He fails to beat out the other contenders, however, because he has found the least cool way to use The Force out of all of the Star Wars characters -- the lightning thing is just too blatant. My point is proven by the fact that he was defeated by the character who had found the most-subtle-and-therefore-most-cool way to unleash the dark side -- choking people just by thinking about it.

This is where things get difficult. On the one hand, we have a man who was hit by a HELICOPTER and finished making the movie anyway. On the other hand, we have a man who offers his adversaries in a professional voice the choice between severe self-mutilation and certain death, rather than deal with them himself. These are two very cool guys, although neither really had any cool lines and there is no hint of any Evil Laugh (TM) from either of them. This demonstrates the near-paradox that these two men transcend the narrow boundaries of coolness and each thereby approaches the Nirvana of Mentos Cool (TM). However, there can only be one. The way I see it, Mad Max handcuffs Chan by his leg to a pipe and gives him a hacksaw, then makes for the finish. Chan ACTUALLY DOES cut his foot off at the ankle, catches Max on one foot and beats him soundly with a refrigerator, a pinball machine and a stray goat. Chan finishes first and then proceeds to pummel the predictably reneged pardon out of Damon with his severed foot. The X-Men are a non-factor because, before he even started running, Jackie Chan waited around for each of them and finished them all off like so many Generic Early-Movie Thugs (TM).

- Matthew J.D. Moir

I simply don't believe you're putting five normal guys, a cartoon tiger that doesn't act like one, and a guy with the dark side of the Force against mutants. The mutants have superpowers, people!!!!! Let me break it down for you, ok?

1. Cyclops uses his laser vision to melt Hawking's wheelchair control...he's out.
2. Mad Max attempts to shoot Rogue; oh dear, it doesn't work, she's indestructible! She then absorbs his memories, and starts mumbling something that sounds like "Pocahontas"...Max is gone.
3. Jackie Chan's resourcefulness and martial arts skills are no match for Beast, whose agility and brains enable him to take Jackie out easily.
4. Hobbes is just a cartoon...colored ink on paper. Wolverine shreds him without breaking a sweat.
5. The Joker's Smylex gas is blown away by a sudden gust of wind, courtesy of Storm. She then lays the smack down on him with a couple hundred bolts of lightning (a bit excessive, but it's just to be on the safe side).
6. Dr. Evil starts constructing an overly elaborate escape plan (as is his style) and doesn't notice Gambit's flying cards...his last words are "That frickin hurt!"
7. Emperor Palpatine? A combination attack by the two most powerful telepaths on the planet...Jean Grey and Professor X (hopefully disarming him before he does something mean to the Prof's hovering device).

I mean, come on, people. They're comic book superheroes. Everyone knows the heroes don't die!

- Scotty J.

Easy... Jackie Chan wins. Jackie Chan can beat anybody so long as he's got some handy items to smack them around with; it's only when he doesn't have broken pipes, ladders, pieces of chairs, or small bits of string within easy reach that he actually runs the risk of being defeated, and there's a lot of Jackie Chan-able crap lying around in 400-odd square blocks worth of debris-strewn playing field. This alone insures his victory; he's the MacGuyver of Kung Fu. But that's not enough; this is a Tournament of Champions, and we have to go the extra mile. So consider this: Chan's sado- masichistic enough to snap his broken bones back into place and continue going like nothing ever happened. He's also least likely to get caught up in the rivalries amongst his fellow Running Men, so long as he can evade the homoerotic web of Mad Max (which ought to be easy for both since they have incompatible accents, negating the chance of any meaningful dialogue). And since he's got a soft spot for protecting people in wheelchairs (see "Rumble In The Bronx"), when Dr. Hawking is inevitably slain Chan can easily tap into his RAGE(tm), claiming the necessary ganas to triumph over the remaining contestants. Chan in 90 minutes (the average length of his films).

- The BrakYeller

Hobbes wins. It's that simple. One word. Transmogrifier. What was once a simple cardboard box is now capable of chaging our favorite tiger into anything he can dream of. Lets just say that the largest, most fierce cat on the face of the earth somehow is not able to defeat, oh, lets say, Wolverine. Just when Hobbes is on the ropes, "Boink" suddenly Hobbes is a two ton Allosaur, and eats our adamantuim skeletoned midget in one bite. Let's see Dr. Evil invent one of those. And if that isn't enough, you can just turn the box over and travel back in time to five minutes before the competition, and eat all of the other runners before they even have a chance to beat him to the finish line. And just look at his track record. When Calvin needed his homework done, who did he call on? Hobbes. Who regularly sets up ambushes on Calvin, who would have been killed a hundred times before had Hobbes not spared his life on numerous occasions? Hobbes. Even the password to the secret club G.R.O.S.S. is a five minute dissertation on the great qualities of tigers. This is no contest. Hobbes in 10 minutes. The force drags Palpatine's wrinkly ass across the finish line 3 seconds later, but it makes no difference, as he is executed by a wheezing, one handed, David Prowse, proclaiming himself to be the "real" Darth Vader.

- Flyincheezweasel

Hello there. I've been resurrected from the grave by a select committee of a thousand wise dead men to tell you something: there's no contest here.

This year's summer bash, or, as they're calling it in Hell, One Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat vs. Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner, is one of the duller matches I've seen on this site**. I mean, come on. Nasty sharp claws and big pointy teeth versus the guy from What Women Want and his leather pajaamas? Please.

Oooh, look, an Austin Powers reference. Lemme tell you something: maybe, say, Dick Chaney considers Austin Power quotes to be "xtreme cool" (as they said in the last decade), but the rest of us are goddamn tired of it. The minute he makes the little quote gestures and says "laser", his throat is gonna be torn apart like wrapping paper at Christmas, and all the world will be a better place for it.

The rest of them aren't, of course, even worth mentioning. The former two aren't either, except as examples of the carnage that will ensue. I count no less than one geriatric monarch, one overhyped member of Hong Kong's Olympic gymnastic team, and, for Bob's sake, a bunch of freaks led around by Captain Picard. Do I need to remind you people of Star Trek's track record in these parts?

There is only one competitor here that will give pause. Mr. Hawking's stylish, brushed-steel cripplemobile will probably hold up rather well to the vise-like jaws and ravaging claws of the Hobbes beast, but this will avail him naight: there can be little doubt that Stevy H's postulations won't hold up to Hobbe's stringent peer review, and Hawking will have to retire in shame to teach remedial mathematics at a community college somewhere.

Let's see if we can get Hobbes within striking distance of Regis,


**not including the ones I've commented on, of course.

I'm gonna have to go with Austin Powers on this one. I know what you're thinking, he's not even in the race, but when Dr. Evil (TM) attempts to use some devious scheme (TM) Austin Powers (TM) will be called in to stop him. Most likely, Dr. Evil will vaporize all the other contestants, supposedly ensuring himself the win (TM), but will know that the Ministry Of Defense (TM) will be onto him and send Powers. Dr. Evil (TM) will have Powers in some sort of long, drawn out, torture device and have him watched by one inept guard (TM) whom Powers will easily kill and escape from. While Dr. Evil (TM) is on his way to "certain victory" (TM) Powers will trip him with a tripline of dental floss and cross the tapeline for the win (TM). Dr. Evil will escape in the Big Boy (TM) and Powers will be cleared of all charges in a recent file case of sexual harassment, most of which, involving the word "Baby" which they claim is deragatory. And not only has he won the race, but Powers has ingeniously left room for a sequel.

- Lardawg

Breaking it down, we see that three of our contestants (The Joker, Emperor Palpatine, and Dr. Evil) are what we in the scientific community like to call 'Super Villains.' Everyone knows that Super Villains, no matter how evil they are, always get their arses whooped on by Super Heroes (i.e. The X-men) on a fort-nightly basis. This eliminates them right away. Our next pair of contestants to clash with each other would be Jackie Chan and Mad Max. Now granted, Max lives in an apocalyptic outback where the crazed descendants of banished inmates are constantly trying to kill him, but Jackie Chan does his own stunts against guys like this everyday- and you have to admit that's pretty cool. The Chan-Man wins this battle. Next on the list we have Stephen Hawking and Hobbes. This match-up probably won't involve fisticuffs so much as it will be a philosophical debate on the elemental theories that govern our universe. And of course, we all know Hobbes is the master here. His wild ideas on particle manipulation alone will be enough to pop Hawking's think-maker.

What's left is a close race between the X-men, Jackie Chan, and Hobbes, this being the inevitable outcome: Jackie Chan, already pushed too close to the edge by one too many movies with Chris Tucker, will take one look at a talking stuffed tiger and simply freak out. While he's aimlessly wandering the streets muttering something about 'fried chicken' and 'melting hair,' the X-men will begin to close in on poor Hobbes. This, however, is when Hobbes pulls out his secret weapon. Disguising himself as a simple stuffed animal, he will appeal to the X-men's lost youth. They will remember all the innocent childhood memories that were snatched away from them because they were hideous mutants. They will feel the need to frolic among the dandy lions and slip Kool-aid on the porch. Depressed and harboring a sudden deep resentment for Prof. X, they will turn away and zoom back to H.Q. ready to beat the cr*p out of that old, bald guy who stole them from their loving families and trained them to be merciless violence mongers. In short: Hobbes gets a pardon, Xavier gets a whoopin'.

- No Name Jake

You have to go with mad max, he is able to outrun a whole army of bad guys while driving a tractor trailer full of sand. That is not exactly my first choice for a quick getaway, even if only to be the decoy. As far as everyone else goes, stephen hawking would only stand a chance if his wheelchair could fly. The area was left in shambles by an earthquake, not a good environment for a wheelchair to move through, and when the x-men are on your trail, all that needs to happen is for storm to call up a little ice and snow and rust out the wheelchair, hawking stranded, then chopped into itty bitty pieces by snikckitty snickkitty schnang schnang-Wolverine, no more hawking. Dr. Evil could not even handle a parody of james bond. Now there is some honor involved in losing to james bond, but a nasty toothed, mod squad wanna-be that has infected the world with more annoying quotes than any pop culture source this side of seinfeld deserves to die.

The Emperor may have the power of the darkside, but he is so decrepit that he can barely walk away from the dias his throne is on. He may be able to cook everyone else with lightning bolts from his fingertips, but he could not cross the game grid in time even if nobody was left alive to stop him, he's disaqualified for not making it in three hours and is executed (assuming he doesn't run the corrupt government). Jackie Chan was starred in a movie called "Mr. Nice Guy" need i say more. The joker is too confused an evil villain. he created batman by kiling Mr. and Mrs. Wayne, inspiring young bruce to fight crime. Batman created the joker by dropping him into a vat of acid. The whole irony of mortal enemies being so only because they made each other who they are has eliminated his instinct for killing superheroes. Batman is just smart and has those wonderful toys, the X-Men have superpowers. How about Gambit charging up a joker from his deck of cards to blow up the joker? Comic book villians lose to comic book heroes. Hobbes is already stuffed, he is just waiting for his head to be mounted on the wall. The x-men encounter the problem of having professor X in a wheelchair- see steven hawkings. They also are the shills for a corrupt regime, and everyone knows the shills for a corrupt regime oppressing the masses through deception will always lose, its one of the most important rules in all of popular entertainment. By supporting the corporate suits and crooked politicians, society will not allow them to win.

Mad Max and The RAGE Tm of having pyscho bikers force him to become such a bad ass by kiling his wife and corrupting the law and order of a highway patrol guy that he was able to kill that guy with the shrunken head floating on a pole above his top knot on TWO occasions (Road Warrior and Thunderdome) both while the guy with the head was chasing him through a big running man style death race, once with a tractor trailer and once with a train ( a train for gods sakes, when was the last time a train was used successfully in a battle, the Civil War?) Killing the same guy twice (in case you haven't noticed- it was the Same guy he killed Twice- normally an impossible feat, but he did it. If that is not enough to be able to win a fixed game show, i dont know what is, even if it does revive Tina Turners career and at least guys everywhere got to check out her legs, almost offsetting her comeback.

- The gyrocopter pilot (i can also fly ultralights)

Well, it really is simple. Aside from the obvious animated advantage, all the other contestants being "real people," Hobbes has a few other advantages. One is foot speed, being a tiger and faster than most other folks. But the big advantage is that Hobbes is only allowed at the most six panels to evolve and entire story. The rest of the these guys require an entire movie...or in some case movies to evolve their plan, action, etc. I mean, just look at Jackie Chan. Dozens of movies, telling basically the same story, and he still keeps making more. Or old Mel, who has the whole Lethal Weapon saga and the Mad Max series (Road Warrior, etc.) Hobbes is going to win just becuase he can get it done in the least amount of time. He will escape, be pardoned, and be back next week, because what cat anywhere can really resist a big, juicy tuna sandwhich. And the fact that Mike Meyers dies is just icing on the cake.

- Trey "too much time" Dodd

Dr. Evil™, with Austin Powers'™ mojo™, will distract Rogue™, Jubilee™, and Jean Grey™. When Rogue can no longer resist him and touches him, she'll get the mojo and Dr. Evil's life force™.

Mad Max™ will shoot his way through whoever gets in his way until he gets to Colossus™. Colossus will stand there in his armor until Mad Max runs out of bullets, then knocking him on the head and eliminating him from the competition.

The Joker™ will be eliminated right quickly. He might engage in witty banter with Cyclops or Gambit for a while, but that will end when one of them decides to unload some antimatter WHOOPA$$™ on him or other. No more laughing there.

The Emperor™ will, obviously, be in a lightning-throwing contest with Storm™. That's pretty much a deadlock until someone interferes on Storm's behalf, or Palpatine™ manages to Force-choke™ her.

Hobbes™ might win, with his extreme speed, catlike agility and reflexes™, and animal instincts, and only after a lengthy tooth-and-nail contest with Wolverine™ except for the fact that every time he is in the presence of Others Besides Calvin™ Especially Grownups™, he turns into a harmless (not to mention motionless) stuffed tiger, who's only power will be cuddliness rivaling the aforementioned mojo, again keeping Rogue, Jubilee, and Jean Grey from the proceedings, but ultimately forfeiting unless one of them drops him off at the finish line.

Jackie Chan, with his real-world agility and martial-arts ability, will outmaneuver or outfight any of the players except the Beast™. In rapid-fire Mandarin, the two of them will launch into a lengthy discourse on Sun Tzu's Art of War™, inevitably becoming friends, shaking hands, and suddenly feeling inexplicably moved to discuss the eternal Tao as...

Dr. Hawking, with his nuclear wheelchair, zooms past Dr. Xavier (whose attempts at telepathic mind-control are powerless against such a superior intellect), and enters Cerebro.

Then a voice was heard through the heavens across the universe and permeating all dimensions... "Now that I've got the processing power, God, could you please explain women to me?"

and Laughter echoed through the cosmos...

- Obscured Underlord, diminishing the self...

For more responses, head over to Page 2
of the WWWF Tournament of Champions VI response file.


Since the rules of the game make no sense, I conclude that Hobbes, given his years of Calvinball experience, will be victorious.

- Jeffrey


WWWF Tournament Of Champions IV
WWWF Tournament Of Champions V
Superfriends v. X-Men

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