A Look Back At The Tournament To End All Tournaments
Here are the results for each round (it's a LOT to take in):
Round One
Round Two
Round Three
Round Four
Round Five
Round Six
Round Seven
Round Eight / The Finals
Well, here we are. Finally...The Blog...HAS COME BACK...to normal. Thank you for reading this insane project, even if you only dipped your toe in. For those of you die-hards that followed me through a year and a half, through crippling self-doubt, though some of the worst times in pro-wrestling history, through 50,000 plus words...I can't thank you enough.
I got this idea after a) Writing The Big Four Song Challenge Series and needing something new to do with this blog and b) Watching old episodes of Super Card on ESPN Classic and wondering how some of these wrestlers would fare against the stars of today (especially considering Raven, Mick Foley and Booker T were in there). What I should have done was cut myself off at 352 wrestlers (22 brackets of 16; still insane, but way more manageable). Probably less. But no. I went the full 720. 45 brackets of 16. Hell, while I'm throwing out numbers, here's the ones of note:
Word Count: 50,403+ (at 250 words per page, that's 202 pages)
Number of Posts: 91
Number of Times I had to Suspend The Tournament: 3
# of posts before Tournament: 357
# after: 484
Number of Matches: 717
Avg. # of Words per Post: 554 (rounded up)
Duration of Project: November 4th, 2013-May 8th, 2015 (551 Days)
A lot can happen in 551 days. During the course of this tournament, The Undertaker's Streak came to an end, The "YES!" Movement came and went, we lost The Ultimate Warrior, Verne Gagne and Connor "The Crusher", BOTH Royal Fumbles happened, CM Punk quit the business and we all went to Suplex City. The two WWE world titles, separate since 2002, were unified. Santino Marella retired. TNA crashed and burned, and now they're in "Tree falls in a forest status," and rightly so. (That's what happens when you have a wrestling company run by gibbons. If it weren't for The Carter Family fortune, they would've (and perhaps should've) folded.) The Network was launched. Yes, I started this when PPV buyrates still mattered. Lucha Underground wasn't a thing yet. New Japan didn't have American TV yet. Global Force Wrestling still didn't exist. (GFW: A vaporware wrestling promotion.) Sting made his WWE and Wrestlemania debut. All of that has transpired in the last year and a half. And it was inspired by watching twenty plus year old C-Level at best wrestling shows on ESPN Classic (shows which the McMahon family purchased the rights to a few months later, as it happens).
It's been a helluva run, but I'm thankful that it's over. This tournament was WAY way more work than I bargained for. I frankly can't believe I stuck with it. But I did. And now it's finished. I hope you enjoyed reading The Tournament To End All Tournaments, and if you'd like to read my next book length project, I have a poetry book coming soon! Solutions To Manmade Problems is my next project ("Seriously, this time I mean it!" -Me in 2012/13/14/15)
Until then, I'll keep throwing up blogs, so check back here every week or so. Just remember this:
Round One
Round Two
Round Three
Round Four
Round Five
Round Six
Round Seven
Round Eight / The Finals
Well, here we are. Finally...The Blog...HAS COME BACK...to normal. Thank you for reading this insane project, even if you only dipped your toe in. For those of you die-hards that followed me through a year and a half, through crippling self-doubt, though some of the worst times in pro-wrestling history, through 50,000 plus words...I can't thank you enough.
I got this idea after a) Writing The Big Four Song Challenge Series and needing something new to do with this blog and b) Watching old episodes of Super Card on ESPN Classic and wondering how some of these wrestlers would fare against the stars of today (especially considering Raven, Mick Foley and Booker T were in there). What I should have done was cut myself off at 352 wrestlers (22 brackets of 16; still insane, but way more manageable). Probably less. But no. I went the full 720. 45 brackets of 16. Hell, while I'm throwing out numbers, here's the ones of note:
Word Count: 50,403+ (at 250 words per page, that's 202 pages)
Number of Posts: 91
Number of Times I had to Suspend The Tournament: 3
# of posts before Tournament: 357
# after: 484
Number of Matches: 717
Avg. # of Words per Post: 554 (rounded up)
Duration of Project: November 4th, 2013-May 8th, 2015 (551 Days)
A lot can happen in 551 days. During the course of this tournament, The Undertaker's Streak came to an end, The "YES!" Movement came and went, we lost The Ultimate Warrior, Verne Gagne and Connor "The Crusher", BOTH Royal Fumbles happened, CM Punk quit the business and we all went to Suplex City. The two WWE world titles, separate since 2002, were unified. Santino Marella retired. TNA crashed and burned, and now they're in "Tree falls in a forest status," and rightly so. (That's what happens when you have a wrestling company run by gibbons. If it weren't for The Carter Family fortune, they would've (and perhaps should've) folded.) The Network was launched. Yes, I started this when PPV buyrates still mattered. Lucha Underground wasn't a thing yet. New Japan didn't have American TV yet. Global Force Wrestling still didn't exist. (GFW: A vaporware wrestling promotion.) Sting made his WWE and Wrestlemania debut. All of that has transpired in the last year and a half. And it was inspired by watching twenty plus year old C-Level at best wrestling shows on ESPN Classic (shows which the McMahon family purchased the rights to a few months later, as it happens).
It's been a helluva run, but I'm thankful that it's over. This tournament was WAY way more work than I bargained for. I frankly can't believe I stuck with it. But I did. And now it's finished. I hope you enjoyed reading The Tournament To End All Tournaments, and if you'd like to read my next book length project, I have a poetry book coming soon! Solutions To Manmade Problems is my next project ("Seriously, this time I mean it!" -Me in 2012/13/14/15)
Until then, I'll keep throwing up blogs, so check back here every week or so. Just remember this:
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