Breaking Down The Tournament of Villains - First Round

Yesterday, Barstool New York presented this year’s March Madness bracket, the Tournament of Villains. All the worst bad guys in sports, movies, TV, wrestling, real life, music, video games, and more, all meeting in one tournament of 64 to determine who is the best at being evil of them all. The voting so far has been raging on, so here are some of the highlights in each region. Results will be revealed later this afternoon. Let me and KFC know your picks on twitter @CharlieWisco and @KFCBarstool

Movie Region

In my opinion, this is the strongest top-to-bottom region in the entire tournament. Movies have a way of making the most iconic and notorious bad guys in all of the American mythology, so there really isn’t a single character of these 16 who I would be shocked to see make a Final Four run. Hell some of these characters are so well-known that people who haven’t even SEEN the movies they’re in would recognize them. So each of these characters deserve their proper due before voting on the first round comes to an end. Here are some of the highlights with my personal picks. First round results later this afternoon.

Hannibal Lecter (2) vs. Warden Norton (15)

Another absolute battle in what Hannibal expected to be a cakewalk to the second round. Anthony Hopkins studied snakes to prepare for his role as the cannibalistic Doctor Hannibal and it’s easy to see why: he is thoughtful, cold-blooded, and sinister as shit. Personally my favorite types of bad guys are the ones who are the smartest in the room, so don’t think I’m underestimating Lecter. But Warden Norton was hateable as FUCK. He’s the perfect representation of how institutionalized power can be corrupted and abused. If you’ve ever had a semi-sadistic teacher/coach/principal/parent/boss who lorded over a bunch of people who couldn’t fight back with some bullshit guise of moral superiority, you know EXACTLY what type of person Warden Norton was and probably have fantasized extensively about the day you’ll get your revenge on them. In the first dramatic upset of the day at #2 over #15, I’d take the prison warden over the prisoner.

Ivan Drago (6) vs. Shooter McGavin (11)

Look Shooter is funny and all, but he’s a secondary character in an Adam Sandler movie. The Rocky movies are iconic so clearly Drago is the sup- WAIT!!!! OH MY GOD IS THAT SHOOTER’S MUSIC?!?!?!?!

Shooter you old son of a bitch, you old sailor you! One of the best parts of Shooter McGavin isn’t just his role in Happy Gilmore, but how the role has lived on past the movie. The actual Shooter McGavin (that actor doesn’t have a real name, his name is Shooter McGavin) totally inhabiting the McGavin persona speaks to the hilarious strength of the character and just how iconic it is. I don’t know if there has ever been a better depiction of a douchebag in movie history, with the only close second being Derek from Step Brothers. Shooter moves on one more round in his quest for his first Golden Jacket.

Other Region

The”Other” Region. The place where it gets weird. Where real life murderers go head to head with fake ones, and characters like Vince McMahon and Dave Portnoy blur the line between what is fake and what’s reality. Here are two of the most compelling matchups.

Ken Kratz (6) vs. The Grinch (11)

At first glance this looks like a bad seeding job by the committee and an easy ticket to the second round for the Grinch. After all, he hates Christmas, which is a surer sign of evil than being born in the middle of a corn field. But we have to remember: the Grinch did go soft at the end. Meanwhile Ken Kratz (the prosecutor from Making A Murderer) still goes to sleep every night with a smile on his face knowing he sent Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey to prison. And he also lost his joke for sexting a domestic violence victim while prosecuting her ex-boyfriend as a Wisconsin district attorney, which is a movie so goddamn cold-blooded it should earn him an immediate nomination for the Playa Haters Ball from Chapelle Show. Can’t teach those types of evil intangibles, Kratz drags him and the Manitowoc County Sherriff’s Department to the Round of 32.

Donald Trump (8) vs. David Portnoy (9)

The Bad Boy of Blogging faces the most divisive political figure in decades in a first round clash of the titans. The biggest omission of the movie region for this bracket was Bill The Butcher from Gangs of New York, so I’m glad we got a psychopath slumlord from New York City who hates immigrants somewhere in here. Obviously a lot has been made about Portnoy and Trump being mirror images of each other, so this game is going to the final possession. But I have to give this one to the Donald: People in every nook and cranny of the Internet might hate Dave, but people all over the world hate Trump. He’s an international bad guy, so just based on the magnitude of his villainy I have to give him the edge. Much like the GOP primaries, Trump disappointed the experts and pundits who anticipated an early exit for him and rolls on.

Television Region

The tournament marches on with the TV division.I expect whoever comes out of this region to have a strong chance at the ultimate title, given the fact we’re in the golden age of TV so most of these characters are fairly recent and fresh in everyone’s minds. And for good reason too, these guys have all done some diabolical shit.

(5) Joffrey Baratheon vs. (12) Cartman

There’s an argument to be made that this is the strongest first round matchup in the entire tournament. Two petulant children with very Hitler-y dispositions, the main difference between them is that Joffrey was born with the world’s biggest spoon in his mouth and the ability to torment nearly anyone he wants, while Cartman is essentially white trash who has to manipulate the dumber kids to do his bidding. My first inclination was to pick Cartman, because after all he did kill a kids parents, made chili with their bodies, then publicly fed it to him because he owed him 16 bucks. But then I remembered the reign of terror Joffrey imposed on King’s Landing and all the mental terrorism he unleashed on Sansa and Tyrion. The deciding factor for me was finally that Cartman once started a hate movement against gingers, then became one himself, and THEN tried to lead a genocide against non-Ginger people. He also tried to impose The Final Solution 2.0 against the Jewish population of South Park using a Mel Gibson movie as his platform to do so. So while Joffrey  might be the most punchable character in TV history, he never tried to start the Great Westeros Holocaust. Cartman it is.

Gus Fring (4) vs. Nina Meyers (13)

Gus Fring, in my estimation, is a classic paper tiger. While he looks formidable at first glance, upon further analysis you realize that Gus might not have been as bad as we thought he was. Sure he ran a massive drug empire, but he did it with professionalism and keeping unnecessary violence against innocents to a minimum, which is more than you can say for Walter. Gus wasn’t even the worst person in his own show: Heisenberg was. Meanwhile, Nina Meyers was by far the most black-hearted character on a show that prominently featured terrorists, arms dealers, treasonous politicians, and Chloe. I have Meyers upsetting the 4 seed and marching on.

Sports Region

 And finally we arrive at the sports region. Sports villains become so much worse when you realize there are actually people who ROOT for these motherfuckers. It inspires such a visceral type of hate to see little kids wear the jerseys of or grown men defend on sports talk radio people who you absolutely DETEST. So the hate just grows and grows and grows, like an all-consuming fire deep in your chest that won’t go out, and then the person you hate WINS, and it’s fucking aggravating because you can never take a win AWAY from them, and they have those bragging rights forever and ARGGGHHSHJFKDS!!! GOD DAMNIT!!! HOW THE FUCK COULD WISCONSIN BLOW THAT GAME TO DUKE IN THE NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP, HOW?!?!?!

Christian Laettner (4) vs. John Calipari (12)

Christian Laettner is the paragon of Duke. I won’t rehash all the reasons why because ESPN did an entire documentary about it. But he is every Duke player that came before him and has come after him. He is JJ Reddick. He is Grayson Allen. He is Coach K. And Duke will always be the chief villain of college basketball. Calipari can’t even sniff there throne when it comes to being a heel. What does Cal do, recruit one-and-dones, pay them under the table Nike money, violate NCAA rules and leverage NBA offers into more money from taxpayers for his contract? Big deal. Show me a program that doesn’t do that if they can and I’ll show you a program being coached by a poor man’s Brad Stevens. Cal usually loses tournament games because of bad free throw shooting, but it doesn’t matter here. Laettner runs him out of the gym.

Lebron James (2) vs. Ndamukong Suh (15)

Two years ago, this would have been a clash of the titans. Lebron going to Miami is still one of the best heel moves in sports history, and whether you liked it or hated it (97% of you hated it), it can’t be denied it made the NBA roughtly 4500x more interesting overnight. Suh is also a scumbag, but since he’s been exiled to the swamp of mediocrity that is the Miami Dolphins organization, he isn’t enough of a threat to anyone anymore (and his ridiculous contract will ensure that Miami will stay there). Besides, now that Suh is on the Lions, he can’t shock America anymore since he won’t be on National TV every Thanksgiving while people watch him kick QBs in the nuts to get out of talking to their aunts. I’ll pencil in Lebron for the secound round, but much like when he faces Steph Curry this year, I anticipate a swift and decisive playoff exist for him soon.

Let me and KFC know your picks on Twitter @CharlieWisco and @KFCBarstool