Cage Match 2013: The Bracket Revealed!

24 Responses to “Cage Match 2013: The Bracket Revealed!”

1. Pygmalleon says:

   February 22, 2013 at 12:18 pm

   The best one in this will be Gandalf vs The Doctor in round 2. That will probably give you the overall winner
2. Celtic Bear says:

   February 22, 2013 at 12:32 pm

   The Doctor for the win. The dark horse here is Inigo Montoya, who is gonna make it to AT LEAST the semis. As for the CONSPICUOUS lack of Wheel of Time characters, is it too late to get Bella a write in nomination? (Making her, of course, the slightly less dark horse.)
3. Jling says:

   February 22, 2013 at 1:05 pm

   Thank the Fates there are not any Wheel of Time characters. I got tired of them winning matches they never should have and the popularity contest. It was like girl fans harping over Justin Bieber. And the dark horse is Inigo Montya? Um, what? I could beat him up so how is he sure to make the semis? Smaug should win the whole thing. He is a dragon for crying out loud.
4. Paul says:

   February 22, 2013 at 2:28 pm

   Jling has the right of it. Not just with WoT, but the other fan favorites who were winning matches they had no buisness winning just because of popularity as well…

   Inigo may have some degree of popularity of some of the contestants, but he is far from the most popular, and anyone who can disregard a sword thrust from a fencing rapier should crush him.

   I’m not familiar with every contestant here, but of the ones I do know, Smaug seems to have the edge.
5. Zak says:

   February 22, 2013 at 2:43 pm

   Final 4: The Doctor v. Merlin, The White Witch v. Inigo Montoya
   Finals: The Doctor v. Inigo Montoya
   Winner The Doctoer
6. Gemini says:

   February 22, 2013 at 3:21 pm

   The Dunwich Horror’s day are numbered.
7. JOE says:

   February 22, 2013 at 4:42 pm

   I think people are overestimating The Doctor. While its incredibly hard to kill him, the Doctor himself won’t kill an overly large number of people himself. UNLESS its doctor 5, 6, 7 or maybe 8. They might kill people, but the other Doctors would probably be more likely to sacrifice themselves than kill more than a few people.
   As far as I hope he gets, he wont win. He cant, not without severely hurting his own sense of morality.
8. Jonrock411 says:

   February 22, 2013 at 5:05 pm

   Joe stated most of my reasoning for the Doctor getting very far being unlikely based on the characters. (Based on the voters is a whole different story)

   Could he beat the Dunwhich Horror? Probably, it’s a pretty much a Doctor Who villain anyway and it has been shown that the Doctor usually places safety of others over his morality

   Could he beat Gandalf? Highly doubtful, almost as doubtful as Moriarty winning (Brains only get you so far, Jimmy).

   Also, is anyone else annoyed by the fact they referred to him as Doctor Who?

   Personally I’m looking forward to Earth. I hope whoever writes the Dracula vs. Alex fight at least makes sure to use Nadsat. (Writing the entire thing in Nadsat may be a bit confusing, especially without a dictionary but Alex should at least speak it)
9. David says:

   February 22, 2013 at 6:01 pm

   I’m predicting a Smaug/Bene Genesseritt final. Smaug wins. Unless Gandalf defeats The Doctor. Then my prediction is Bene Genesseritt over Gandalf.
10. Charlemagne says:

    February 22, 2013 at 10:31 pm

    No really great first round match ups (Only Merlin vs. the Hound and Medea vs. Inigo Montoya catch my eye at all)… but the second round promises to be excellent! Gandalf vs. The Doctor, Smaug vs. Merlin, Medusa vs. Grendel, Dracula vs. Jekyll/Hyde… looking good!

    Final Four: The Doctor vs. Merlin/Smaug (can’t decide!!), The White Witch vs. Inigo Montoya
    Winner: The Doctor. He may not deserve the win, but I think his massive fanbase should be enough to pull him through this one.
11. The Court Wizard says:

    February 23, 2013 at 12:08 pm

    The Doctor must win this one. Not from superior fighting skills, the man is a bloody pacifist, but through the power of love, space magic, and the super plot loops the writers are so fond of giving us! Besides, if he brought Rory back from the dead so many times, anything is possible. Besides, he can regenerate as many times as needed to get back into the fight.
    As for Gandalf, the guy is super awesome, do not doubt, but even Bilbo is unimpressed by his wizardly skills to start off with. In the movie, (unsure about the books), Bilbo turns to ask Gandalf about Radagast, and poses a question along the lines of “Is he a great wizard, or is he more like you?” Thus inferring that Gandalf isn’t the strongest of wizards. Even he gets older as the years go on, where the Doctor is immortal and can heal wounds with his space magic.
    Man, I can’t wait for these fights! I’m going to go and write some fight scenarios to go in the comments right now!
12. Jonrock411 says:

    February 24, 2013 at 6:17 pm

    @The Court Wizard

    On the Gandalf thing, Bilbo’s views on his skills aren’t accurate at all, Gandalf is a great wizard, one of the greatest in the entire world actually. The “Is he a great wizard, or is he more like you?” line is referring to Gandalf’s eccentric nature. He has powerful magical abilities, on both an offensive and defensive scale and is an immortal spirit who takes the form of a man to aid the people of Middle-Earth

    Also I think you’re overestimating the Doctor’s power, for one, he actually never brought Rory back from the dead. Rory was almost always either “technically” dead or brought back through some other timey-wimey thing. He can”t heal wounds with his “space magic”, isn’t immortal since the First Doctor shows that he does age,. Plus regeneration pretty much takes him out of the fight for a day at least, and another attack during it will kill him instantly.

    Gandalf just shoots him twice with lightning and he’s a goner.
13. LadyOFmyths says:

    February 24, 2013 at 11:30 pm

    Who decided Tripods vs. General Woundwort was a good idea? Hell, who decided General Woundwort was a good idea period? The poor bunny, despite his bravo in Watership Down, will not last but maybe a paragraph in the write-up…
14. Thomas says:

    February 25, 2013 at 1:20 am

    Soooo….we have our first round of fighters…and victors, it looks like. I mean, Moriarty vs Gandalf, Dracula vs Alex…M and A’s acquaintances are already taking out massive life insurance policies.

    Medea vs Inigo is the only potential horse race I can see. Mayyyybe Hyde vs Tarzan as well, if only because somebody, somewhere, is going to get the Stevenson Hyde mixed up with the Moore Hyde and start arguing about how he has gorilla strength and so on.

    I kind of wanted to see Hook paired up with Montoya or Queequeg at some point, just for flavour’s sake, but yeah, his fate is sealed. Kind of a shame, actually, like Woundwort with the Tripods. I get the feeling both characters could have been sort of dark horse badasses for a little while, given the chance, but their first opponents out of the gate are adversaries against whom they can do just about nothing.

    On the subject of the Doctor…the ONLY question that really matters, as far as I can tell, is whether or not he has the TARDIS. If he does, then it negates the whole “cage match” premise but basically assures him the logical position as frontrunner. If not…well, he’s just a scrawny fellow with a screwdriver and a big mouth. No matter how smart he is, he’s not a big hand-to-hand fighter and a situation where his back’s against the wall and he has no way of manipulating the environment to his benefit is basically his worst nightmare.
15. Rose says:

    February 25, 2013 at 7:53 pm

    Very excited for this match. And I hope the Doctor write-ups actually draw on classic Who, because classic Who is incredibly awesome, campy, and not so pretentious. I would say Smaug, but since his fatal weakness is very fatal, maybe not. They might have been better off with Glaurung from the Silmarillion.
    Winner’s probably Merlin, actually; if they draw on some of his historical epicness, then he’s just about Gandalf’s equal in power with the benefit of stories including spectacular magic, not just a few scenes and speculation.
16. The Court Wizard says:

    February 26, 2013 at 4:28 pm

    @Thomas
    If the Doctor doesn’t have the Tardis, he probably has the Vortex Manipulator strapped to his wrist. (The smaller time travel device that River sometimes lends him). With it he can fetch any weapon from across all of space and time.
    I think his biggest weakness is that he never wants to harm someone with lethal force. But if he doesn’t want to kill anyone in the process (which he usually doesn’t), he should just set the phasers to ’stun’. Knowing the Doctor, though, even stunning someone is a little over the top.
    If worst comes to worst and he doesn’t have his Vortex Manipulator, he can always try to strangle his enemy with his stripy scarf (at least the 4th Doctor). Gandalf vs. a camp British man armed with an unattractive woollen piece of clothing – a match I would like to see.
17. Rose says:

    February 28, 2013 at 7:40 pm

    Wouldn’t it be awesome if the characters gained the skills of their enemies on the way? It wouldn’t be in keeping with (most) of their characters, but it’d be very entertaining.

    My friends and I recently did something like that with a quarter bracket of famous women throughout history with superpowers based on their historical roles (Florence Nightengale can heal anything, Marie Curie is radioactive, Catherine the Great gets Russian Winter, etc.). At the end, we had Boudica with the powers of a demigoddess, Russian Winter, infinite healing, witchcraft, fire, and some other things I forget, vs. Marie Curie with radioactive-baby-armada stuff and foresight…it was interesting.
    Boudica won.
18. NT says:

    March 1, 2013 at 7:12 pm

    I’m still waiting for Peter Baelish v. Lord Vetinari. Ah well. Maybe next year.
19. dancressman says:

    March 4, 2013 at 4:00 pm

    The Doctor is definitely an interesting specimen to throw in the mix. He could turn out to be totally overpowered or one of the weaker contenders, depending on the situation. He has few physical strengths, as his only real asset in combat is the Screwdriver (which can’t do wood!), but he is hyper-intelligent and rather informed on all topics technological, biological, and historical. His specialty seems to be in getting out of complex problems, not in duels to the death.

    Granted, this will all hinge on how they portray him. Will the Doctor fight fair, or will he win at all costs? If he wanted to take out Gandalf, for instance, he could travel in time to the instant the ring is falling into Mordor, snatch the ring out of the air, and bring it to Sauron, thus leaving the wizard to be eliminated by a much more powerful enemy. But that doesn’t really seem to be in his nature, as he’s more of a good/evil kind of guy and would be rather hesitant to risk the lives of the entire land.

    Either way, I’m very excited to see how this plays out! As far as I’ve seen this is the first purely television character in a Cage Match, though I may be mistaken. I always thought they were just from books.
20. David says:

    March 5, 2013 at 9:40 am

    @dancressman Actually, there have been many Doctor Who books written. They portray him as being more powerful and mysterious than the tv series lets on.
21. Metacognition says:

    March 7, 2013 at 2:21 pm

    Odd. I know I just read each of the entries for round 1, but I refresh the page and they’re gone. Anyone else having issues?
22. OldSkoolWhoFan says:

    March 8, 2013 at 2:14 pm

    The Doctor is not a pacifist. The 1st Doctor nearly willfully murdered a caveman in his sleep in “An Unearthly Child”. Every version of the Doctor, with the exception of the 5th, has been responsible for many, many deaths. Violence has never been his first recourse, but that doesn’t make him a pacifist. He took out his own home world, remember?
23. gummo says:

    March 8, 2013 at 3:01 pm

    Point of order: Has The Doctor brought Rory back at all? I mean, Rory died twice in dreams, which just made him come two in the real world, then he died from the crack in the universe, and the Alliance brought him back as an Auton, after which Amy brought him back as a human when she was the bootstrap for a universe reboot. So, the Doctor is real good at getting Rory killed, but…
24. CB says:

    April 4, 2013 at 4:55 pm

    I don’t know if I necesarily agree with what everyone is saying about WOT characters, as RJ made most of the protagonists god characters, but then again not reading the books it would be hard to see why “some dude with an axe” made it almost all the way to end, but I think what was more astonishing was that Jamie Lannister made it to the fricken finals, I mean really?? Has anyone read the books?? He doesn’t really do anything except pout. But I digress, where it is still a valid point that people vote for their favorite characters, I think this is actually one of the more boring brackets this year… (Also definitely late to the party, I always forget when this thing starts, but at a glance Smaug should win)