Culture Blues

The 90s Badass Tournament: Tournament Central

The Tournament pits 64 of the most badass characters from 90s cinema against one another in a single elimination tournament.

Sarah Connor, seen here preparing for her first round battle with the mysterious Verbal Kint.

The Tournament brackets have already begun flooding the Culture Blues e-mail box, but for those of you still agonizing over pairings and doing your research, we thought you might appreciate a convenient location with all the most important 90s Badass Tournament information.

THE RULES:

The field of 64 is assembled using the following guidelines:
-Competitors must have a feature film appearance in the 90s to be eligible.
-Absolutely no super powers allowed.
-No actor can be represented by more than 4 different characters (The Arnold Rule).

Fights are contested under the following rules:
-The question being debated is “who would win in a fight?”
-Fights are not necessarily to the death.
-Most fights will be to the death.
-There are no preset conditions for location, weaponry, weather, etc. These factors, if considered, are decided on the whim of the judges.

HOW TO PLAY ALONG:
DOWNLOAD THE FULL TOURNAMENT BRACKET HERE! Then:
1) Fill it out.
2) Send it to tournament@cultureblues.com
3) Win PRIZES! The most accurate Tournament prognosticator will receive a DVD of their choice from any of the featured 90s flicks and maybe some other Culture Blues swag. We might even do something for 2^nd and 3^rd place. We’re unpredictable.
4) Scoring:  1st round = 1 point, 2nd round = 2, Sweet 16 = 4 , Elite 8 = 8 , Final Four = 10, champion = 15.

We’ll be taking brackets until the First Round results come out, probably on Wednesday!

Melvin Smiley reacts to talk of a Gabe Walker upset victory.

THE REGIONS:

The Omega Sector Preview – Her first round loss in The 80s Tournament must be scaring off potential bettors because, so far, only 30% of brackets have (5) Sarah Connor making it out of the first round.

Langley Preview - The most disputed first round match-up out of Langley is (5) John Cutter vs (12) Lyon Gaultier, with the brackets we’ve received so far pretty evenly split but skewing in favor of the upset. Also, 70% of the brackets we’ve received have their eventual champion coming out of Langley.

Pacific Coast Highway Preview – There’s no favorite emerging in the PCH region. Four different regional winners have been selected in the brackets we’ve received so far, the most diverse selection in The Tournament.

USS Missouri Preview – Surprisingly, top-seeded Casey Ryback is the only one of the #1 seeds yet to appear in someone’s Final Four. Where are all the Under Siege fans?

COMPETITIVE INTELLIGENCE:

-For the 90s Tournament, only Bruce Willis maxed out with 4 entries. In the 80s, Schwarzenegger, Stallone, and Kurt Russell all had 4 characters in the field. This time around, Russell completely disappeared (sorry Backdraft and Breakdown), and Stallone and Schwarzenegger were limited to 3 entries a piece. Also sending 3 characters into the field: Jean-Claude Van Damme and Mel Gibson.

-25% of The 90s field make their living in law enforcement. That’s exactly the same ratio we had in the 80s.

-If you need some business taken care of, you’ve come to the right place. 27% of Tournament contenders commit crimes for money. The cops really have their work cut out for them!

-15% of The 90s field don’t survive their own movie. That’s down 5% from the 80s. In the 80s Tournament, not a single character that died in their movie survived beyond the Sweet Sixteen.

Casey Ryback reportedly saddened by lack of fan support.

Remember, get your brackets in to tournament@cultureblues.com, and jump into the comments to convince the judges why your Final Four is the only logical conclusion. Also, if you’re on Twitter, stay tuned this weekend – our Intern will be filling out his bracket via tweet. Watch what that little idiot does, and then do the opposite!