Over at Livejournal, Who's Da Boss -- not to be confused with
Who's The Boss?, the TV show -- is an annual (so far four rounds of
Who's Da Boss have been completed, another is set to begin January,
2009) deathmatch knockout tournament to determine who amongst a
field of 128 contestants is most boss, and thus deserves the title
of Boss. The idea in Who's Da Boss, is to each day have one match
decided by letting contributors write up an answer to the simple prompt: who, of the two contestants in that day's match, would
win in a fight to the death? Each answer by a contributor is a vote,
and the contestant who most voters argued would win wins. The loser,
for all Who's Da Boss is concerned, is dead. Anyone can contribute.
Contributors are encouraged to be as eloquent as possible in
analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of each contestant, in
describing how, in their opinions, the fight would go down, and in
venting at other contributors, whose votes they find misinformed,
misguided, or plain not-to-their-liking. The more creative,
passionate, fastidiously analytical, or depraved, the better. This
results in some soundly entertaining write-ups/votes. For each match,
one or more votes are chosen as "featured commentary", boosting the
ego of the contributor who penned it (the contributors with most
featured commentaries each year also get to choose the following year's
below-mentioned Elite Four).
A meager selection of contestants (seeds, by Who's Da Boss
jargon) from the past are Captain Kirk, the Ur-Quan,
Belgium, Dracula, oral sex, The Doctor, Optimus Prime, David
Bowie, pie, Natalie Portman, Commander Keen, the Wild Things, the Vikings, Powerpuff Girls' Him,
Jack Bauer, Willow Rosenberg, Yoshi, Alien, the Oompa
Loompas, Batman, and Alan Alda. Truly, a celebration of pop
culture. Inevitably, this leads to some pretty weird fights, and
surprisingly, to a lot of high-quality writing in votes
The format of the tournament is as follows: the first round is a
rapid fire of seeds and matches -- 128 seeds, 64 matches, 64 days --
no time to get attatched to any particular seed. Each day a new
match-up is unveiled, usually set up to pit such natural enemies as
the Death Star and a Borg Cube or Garfield and Hobbes (the
Who's Da Boss moderator selects the seeds and the first round
matches, but takes suggestions). Seeds that make it through the first
round are then grouped into four divisions (brackets) -- cultural
icons and current events, sci-fi and fantasy, Hollywood, and the
much-celebrated "Rando" -- and seeded according to first-round
performance. This is when votes start getting a lot more emotionally
charged. Each voter has his favorites and disfavorites, and voters tend
to get upset when a seed they didn't care much for triumphs over a seed
they thought, on the merits, should have gone through. Accusations of
bad-faith voting (not voting for who one thinks would win
in a fight, but for one's favorite), spite votes, faction rivalries,
and blood feuds ensue.
When the champion of each bracket is crowned, by having defeated all
other seeds in their bracket, a contraversial phase of the tournament
begins -- the Elite Four round. The Elite Four are a group of four
combatant, belonging to an rarefied circuit of trained killers,
tasked with protecting the title of Boss from undeserving
claimants. Each bracket champion fights the Elite Four member
assigned before the tournament to that bracket. The loser, be they
Elite Four or bracket champion, is knocked out. The reason this round
has been controversial is that some voters feel that Elite Four seeds
have the unfair advantages of novelty and fresh excitement from the
voting crowd. Also, they feel, Elite Four seeds do not deserve to be
Boss, not having fought their way all the way through the tourney.
The four remaining seeds fight in the semifinals and finals for the
ultimate recognition. With few exceptions, defeated seeds remain dead
and do not return to contest future titles. Bosses also go into
retirement and do not return to contest next year's title. Those
lucky enough to have been named Boss in previous years are:
At the end of the 2007 tournament, Who's Da Boss's long-time
moderator retired from the role, and Who's Da Boss was thrown into
disarray with a mid-way aborted 2008 tournament. But a new
moderator took the mantle and restarted the 2008 tournament with
great success. Most of the four year's worth of votes are of a very
high quality and make for incredibly entertaining reading.
Who's Da Boss may be found on Livejournal, at the URL http://whosdaboss.livejournal.com/.