Tournament of Ass-Kickers

Violence is a polarizing impulse for me. In actuality, I find violence repellent and detestable. The violent urge, except when it is employed in self-defense, is laden with twisted sadism. Enforcers of violence do ignoble and deplorable damage to their fellow man. With every strike against flesh, such crooked lowlifes tacitly contend, “There must be more suffering!” And that sort of brutal adage refutes the possibilities of virtue a human being can choose to pursue—to minimize suffering.

If you'd rather chase after suffering than peace in this frenzied rat race known as life, then you're fucked in the head. If that's the case with you, reader, then let's never hang out together.

In my imaginative life, which of course differs from actuality, violence appeals to me. It is quite a challenge to suppress the human urge for gaudy entertainment. We get bored so easily without fireworks, thunderstorms, Super Bowls, Royal Rumbles, episodes of “Cops,” and the like. The days become unbearably slow and stagnant in the absence of lurid spectacles. In cycles of neurosis, we trade boredom for pain when the boredom begins to ache. Later we trade the pain back for boredom when the pain becomes dull.

The pangs I feel to partake in one hell of a bloody show are transferred to imaginative outlets. My precious jollies are had when I press the X-button to decapitate a zombie with a loaded shotgun as I guide my character through the gory adventure of a survival horror video game. I watch on with savage glee as Lieutenant Aldo Raine carves a swastika into the forehead of the hysterically squealing Jew Hunter. Once a year I watch a WWF cassette tape highlighted by a steel cage match between The Undertaker and The Heartbreak Kid Shawn Michaels—as dumb tribute to gaudy and fictitious violence at its best.

I suppose I'm a hypocrite because I disdain real violence but embrace fictitious violence. I assure myself that imaginative violence is harmless as long as one has a thoughtful philosophy to condemn real violence. But perhaps I'm fooling myself.

The ensuing column glorifies fictitious violence with (hopefully) funny results. After I graduated college, I still published guest contributions on a sporadic basis in the Advance-Titan. I was able to do this because fellow humor columnist Tyler Maas, two years my junior, had become the editor of the newspaper, and Tyler is a fan of my work. For the Halloween issue, we collaborated on “The Tournament of Ass-Kickers” with two other columnists whose names I cannot recall. We devised brackets of 16 combatants for each writer and then determined the outcome of each fight, working our way to the Final Four.

Included here is the first round of my bracket, the Fist Pumps for Brutality region. Much of what follows differs from how it was printed in October of 2007, which hardly matters. Changes have been made to allow for more contemporary references as well as an expanded list of dead pro-wrestlers.


First Round Match-ups

Wolverine (1) defeats Captain Planet (16).
Shortly after the opening whistle blows, Captain Planet sets his mind to digging a compost heap. He offers Wolverine a hoe in a gesture of what he refers to as, “Solidarity with Mother Nature.” For the novelty of an easy kill, Wolverine doesn't even bother to extend his deadly Adamantium claws, opting instead to club Captain Planet to death with the garden tool. Wolverine then litters an empty bag of pretzels onto the mangled corpse of Captain Planet. Sorry, hemp-worshiping vegans, but if you want America to become more environmentally conscious, you need to lend your support to a superhero who's got more balls than Captain Planet.

Goro (2) defeats Franklin Delano Roosevelt (15).

With a functioning limbs advantage of six-to-two, Mortal Kombat's most insidious villain finishes off what polio started. Goro hijacks the wheelchair of our greatest (handicapped) president and bashes FDR with it using his top two arms while the others play Wii Boxing and write haikus in honor of fallen heavy metal God Ronnie James Dio.

Massive Naked Black Guy from “Cops” who Punched a Hole through a Wooden Fence while Jacked-Up on PCP (3) defeats Aquaman (14).

Aquaman's reputation as the most useless above-sea level superhero is validated in this one-sided fracas. Pfft. Aquaman. His “powers” would only prove fruitful if we lived in a world in which SCUBA divers robbed mermaids at harpoon gunpoint. His opponent, whom we will refer to from now on as PCPNBG, with the last three letters in the acronym standing for “Naked Black Guy,” is built like a naked linebacker. He is impervious to pain until the PCP wears off and he is covered in blood. Aquaman's fear of possibly contracting Hepatitis from the bloody vagrant is fleeting. Before the panic really takes hold, PCPNBG bashes Aquaman's head in with a trash can lid.

The Bride (4) defeats Chewbacca (13).

In spite of Chewbacca's height and weight advantage over Beatrice Kideaux, the Bride, the bedazzling Samurai assassin from the Tarantino flick “Kill Bill,” it is important to keep in mind that Chewbacca, endearing as he is when his plaintive moans aren't irritating the shit out of you—Chewbacca is essentially a noisy, gawky, Muppet creature. He's built more like Yao Ming than Shaq O'Neal; he's lacking in bulk for not only a dominant low post game, but also superior ass-kicking prowess. The Bride slays as many Yokuza henchmen in two gory minutes of “Kill Bill” than Chewbacca kills Strom Troopers in the entirety of the “Star Wars” trilogy. The Bride dominates the fight but spares Chewbacca's life. Rather than slicing the Wookie in half with her Hattori Hanzo blade, the Bride opts for a more humane victory and mercifully plucks Chewbacca's right eye from its socket. She then sells it to the highest bidding nerd on e-Bay. (Congratulations to Tyler Christensen from Sherman Oaks, California!)

Hacksaw Jim Duggan (12) defeats Magneto (5).

X-men arch nemesis Magneto's ability to manipulate metallic objects with telekinetic force is rendered useless because Hacksaw's foreign object of choice is a wooden 2 x 4. Magneto's lone offensive attack is telepathically ripping a gold stud out of Hacksaw's earlobe, which Hacksaw only wore in the first place because his old lady Deedra, a bartender at a bowling alley in Queens, insists it makes him look more dashing. Luckily for Hacksaw, the plate inserted into his head after the notorious “Sledgehammer Trampoline Incident” is not made out of metal, but rather Legos. (It turns out that pro wrestler Dr. Death, who performed the procedure, is not in fact an accredited surgeon.) Hacksaw squeezes the pine into finely ground sawdust with his mammoth, clumsy hands and then bludgeons Magneto into a mangled monstrosity. As Dick Vital would exclaim, it's upset city, baby, and they are rejoicing in the streets of Hacksaw Jim's hometown of Glen Falls, New York.

General George Washington (11) defeats Robocop (6).

Unknowingly corrupted by overconfidence, Robocop pistol-whips General Washington for the first two minutes of the bout, echoing the initial power and haughtiness of the British Empire during the Revolutionary War. Bloodied and exhausted, Washington matches the fortitude he displayed during his troop's six-month winter Battle of Attrition holed up at Valley Forge. General Washington, always a savvy strategist, aims the barrel of his musket at Robocop's vulnerable mouth area, specifically the hollow target of his open mouth as Robocop drones bland cop rhetoric about Persecuting to the Fullest Extent of the Law. Crimson-tainted gunpowder sprays through the back of Robocop's neck.

Macho Man Randy Savage (7) defeats Super Macho Man (10).

Supercilious Nintendo boxer Super Macho Man scrambles the brains of the Macho Man Randy Savage early in the bout, landing solid thumps on his skull with the force of a hammer. He should have worked the body instead. Considering that much of Savage's thought process consists of catchphrases such as “Oooh, yeah, Dig it” and “Snap into a Slim-Jim,” Savage's head trauma has little if any effect on the fight. The former WWF Champion eventually turns the tide of the fight, nailing a flurry of clotheslines before finishing Super Macho Man with a flying elbow drop off the top rope. In a post-match interview, a teary-eyed Savage dedicates his victory to the memories of his tragically fallen pro-wrestling comrades, including: the Lovely Miss Elizabeth, Mr. Perfect, The Big Boss Man, The British Bulldog, Owen Hart, The Texas Tornado, Earthquake, Yokazuna, Eddie Guerrero, Flyin' Brian Pillman, Chris Benoit, Ric Flair, who is expected to die in a Sledgehammer Trampoline accident of his own later next week, and 14 others whom I'm omitting due to lack of space. For God's sake, please stay the hell away from cocaine and steroids, kids!

Chucky (9) defeats The Leprechaun (8).

The Leprechaun at once tackles Chucky, pins him down and kneels on his wee doll arms, and wields a broken bottle of Guinness inches above Chucky's bulging eyes. With certain death looming, the redheaded Hellraiser pleads in an Irish accent: “For the love of Riverdance, you can't kill a fellow Irishman!” The Leprechaun skeptically remarks, “What? You're too big of a wanker to be hailing from Mother Ireland.” Chucky persists. “I swear on me last drop of whiskey, me family's from Ireland. Every time I think about the Great Potato Famine I feel like stabbing the first babysitter I come across.” The Leprechaun lowers his guard. “Ay! I've stabbed more than a few babysitters me-self. And the Great Potato Famine? T'was devastating! You know, me grandparents in the Old Country didn't even realize there were edible foods other than potatoes. Just imagine what a cursed time they had—“
At this point the treacherous Chucky takes advantage of the Leprechaun's naïvety and thrusts a switchblade into his opponent's jugular. In his regular voice, Chucky muses, “Stupid Mick.”