WWWF GRUDGE MATCH

Glossary

BEGINNER

WWWF: World Wide Web Fights. The multi-national comglomerate housing the contests presented here under the names Grudge Match and Ground Zero. A play on WWW (World Wide Web) and WWF (World Wrestling Federation), and we've got the restraining order to prove it.

Grudge Match: The creation of Steve Levine and Brian Wright. The product of late-night half-drunken bull sessions, webpage-building skills, and too much time on one's hands. Proof that a good education prepares you for life, since life these days is about being immature and popular.

STGF™: Save The Grudge Foundation. Eight Grudge Match fans, originally recruited as guest commentators and supplemental contributors to Grudge Match, Da Book(see below), who banded together to keep WWWF alive while Steve and Brian tried real life, and decided it wasn't for them.

Ground Zero: The STGF's continuation of Grudge Match during Steve and Brian's extradition heari--uh, their temporary absence.

Grudgies: Awards for the best responses to matches. Worth their weight in ... uh ... pixels.

ROTW: Response of the Week. The funniest, most original, or most clever response we get to a particular match. Comes in Gold (1st), Silver (2nd), and Bronze (3rd), a system the International Olympic Committee blatantly stole from us. Our lawsuit is pending.

The Final Word: The best short response to a match, placed at the end of the responses to close things out and send you home with a smile.

Grudge Match, Da Book™: Steve and Brian's first big cash-in, even though they never made any money off of it. 25 of Grudge Match's greatest fights, with concentrated response goodness. Lots easier to take into the bathroom, yet far less likely to make your mother suspicious.

Humor: Amusement, laughs, fun. This should be self-evident, but now and again somebody comes along and takes us way too seriously. Don't worry, we have a couple of self-appointed Wet Blankets (yes, we mean you, Shane) to keep us from going completely off the deep end.

INTERMEDIATE

™{also (tm) and (TM)}: Legal notation required for any concept that has achieved universal recognition. Used with increasing frequency at Grudge Match since its inception several years ago. We currently estimate that by July 2005, our commentaries will consist entirely of ™s.

The RAGE™: The anger, frustration, or thirst for revenge that distills itself into the pure, white-hot will to win. Much like the Eye of the Tiger™, except that it doesn't distract itself with #1 pop tunes but rather just gets down to business. The most sought-after commodity in any Grudge Match.

The Babe Factor™: The effect that being Hot™, or being connected to someone who's Hot™, has on a contestant's chances of winning a Grudge Match. Given that we're ten young guys, this is really self-explanatory.

Mr. T: Patron saint, mascot, and chief enforcer of WWWF. Once he cruised to victory against Mr. Clean early in our history, his ascent to Grudge Match sainthood was inevitable. We like to think we're like Mr. T: fierce competitors who live for the fight, take no nonsense, and exude menace and toughness--with just enough of a wink on the side that you can relax and enjoy us.

TOC: The Tournament of Champions. An annual contest, begun in the Ground Zero years, pitting the best of the previous year's winners against each other in the ultimate no-holds-barred fight. Collateral damage is inevitably immense, which is how you know it's a good fight. The first one was held in Washington, D.C., to minimize innocent casualties.

The Iron Fist™: The ultimate enforcer in keeping our reader response section down to a manageable size. Many a worthy response has felt its cold wrath over the years. Do not fear it, though, for it appears only when the responses are so good, it makes choosing between them difficult. It is the mark of quality™. Say with us: "The Iron Fist is my friend. The Iron Fist is my friend...."

The Ritalin Reading Room (RRR): Occasionally the Iron Fist will relent, and permit a supplemental page of responses to pass its stern muster. Those responses end up here. It is for those of unusually long attention spans, hence the name. Go ahead. Read it. We dare you.

Poobah (also Grand Poobah): Paul Golba, ringleader of the Save The Grudge Foundation(see 'STGF'). His refusal to let Grudge Match die preserved WWWF long enough for us all to cash in. We bow to him in humble reverence for his strength and wisdom--and because he's got pictures of us that nobody really needs to see.

HotBranch!: Paul Branchaud, one of Grudge Match's earliest fans, and a commentator and HTML maven during the Ground Zero era. He's from Canada. Make of that what you will.

Dragon Hamster Productions, LLC: The production arm of WWWF's multi-national comglomerate.

ADVANCED

Game Show Mania: A sextet of game show themed matches from the early Grudge Match years.

Gridiron Grudge Match: A quartet of football themed matches from the early days which appeared on the official Super Bowl XXX website. Notable for drawing the fewest votes of any WWWF matches despite being up for a month at a time.

Chihuahuas (also A Rottweiler's Weight in Chihuahuas): Contestants in a relatively early, and very popular, Grudge Match. Despite losing, they impressed many with their tenacity in a fight, which grows to terrifying porportions when they come in packs. WWWF keeps some in reserve as its elite shock troops, to unleash whenever someone crosses us. If you ever see someone say "Something vs. a Something Else's weight in Somethings", it is in reference to the original Rottweiler/Chihuahua match.

"All Mangled and Killed" Option: Sometimes, a viewer will so hate all of the contestants involved that instead of voting for one over the other(s), they feel compelled to request that all be slaughtered. This is occassionally offered as a legitimate voting option. It's origins are found in the classic Barney vs. Wesley match.

English Soccer Hooligans: Winners of a classic Ground Zero match against the French Army during World Cup 1998. The archetypes of drunkenness, stupidity, and random violence, like Animal House without the distractions of education.

Mentos: The Freshmaker™. The candy which (so the commercials show us) gives you an irrepressible, irreverent attitude toward life. This makes Mentos, and anyone equated with them, the epitome of cool.

Whoop-@$$: A harsh beating. Generally packaged in easy-opening cans. Frequently seen in Grudge Matches.

Fanboys: Obsessive aficionados of TV series/movies/comic books/video games/etcetera. A match featuring objects of their fixations will gather a slew of extra readers, votes, and responses, which is why we like doing them. These people are fun to mock, too.

"Star Trek MUST Lose": A superstition whose origins lie with the starship Enterprise's lopsided defeat to the Death Star early in Grudge Match history. From then on, each time someone or something from Star Trek got into a match, it was defeated. (There are expections to this rule, of course, but since those involve Trek villains, leading theoretical physicists have postulated an inverse effect.) When Ground Zero's Spock vs. Data match pitted two Star Trek protagonists against each other, many feared the violent end of the universe due to the paradox of a Star Trek character winning. Note #1: This tenuous myth was effectively shattered with Scotty's convincing victory over The Professor. Note #2: This postulate should not be confused with the similar concepts of "The Simpsons must win" and "The French suck at everything except cooking".

EXPERT

The Sedate Vlad Fund: A charitable organization dedicating to ministering to one of our more frequent respondents (who never impressed me as all that excitable -- comparatively speaking, that is). Being the caring, compassionate people we are at WWWF, we've already embezzled the money (see Wrestlers vs. Boxers), but we still encourage you to send in more.

Devin the Mental Hospital Escapee: One of our regular response writers. His madness has crystallized into a towering hatred of commentator Brendan W. Guy. If Devin ever does hunt down his nemesis, WWWF will be on the scene to give you every luscious detail of the fight.

HotBranch! 3:16: Occasional legend seen on banners and T-shirts at WWWF matches. Not defined here, since the point is to arouse your curiosity so you will seek out the meaning for yourself.

The Braveheart Jihad™ (There is no Jihad): The dreaded terrorist organization that perpetrated one of the greatest voter frauds in our history during the William Wallace/Groundskeeper Willie match, then cruelly mocked us with their motto "There Is No Jihad". Their name and nonexistence is still occasionally invoked in comentaries and responses, sending chills through all who hear of them. If you have any information regarding this organization (which does not exist), odds are you won't last long enough to tell us about it.

CI Host: Ground Zero's former server. They brilliantly avoided the Y2K crisis by crashing their entire system in the last days of 1999. This left us off the web for nearly two weeks, during which time they professed daily that service would return any minute now. Since we do not wish to appear bitter, we will merely note that CI Host sets the global standard for incompetence, arrogance, sloth, ugliness, and erectile dysfunction. Believe us, we could say much worse.

Fluffy: HotBranch!'s pet goldfish. Our benchmark of minimal competence. If Fluffy can accomplish something, anyone or anything can -- except perhaps the hapless match antagonist (or commentator) being compared to Fluffy.