So yeah, turns out the whole thing was just this big promotional stunt to advertise Blockbuster’s expanded Nintendo video game rental business. That’s why they tied it all into Fred Savage and The Wizard, which was not only the greatest video-game-road-trip-coming-of-age movie of all time, but also one gigantic product-placement ad for Nintendo. The whole commercial aspect of the championship totally sullied what should’ve been a sacred torch of pure competitive fire, and I was furious. (Also make sure you go to InterdimensionalChampionsClub.gg for the latest in Official Dr Disrespect Apparel™ RIGHT FUCKING NOW!)

Anyway, then that asshole Fred Savage took the mic and smiled his phony Savage smile.

“Now, let the tournament—and the amazing deals on all Nintendo products at your local Blockbuster—begin!”

The competition was intense, my friends, I won’t lie.

All right, that would be a lie, because I totally destroyed everyone. I mean, the other dudes were great and all, don’t get me wrong, but I was the Doctor. The Almost-but-Not-Quite-Yet Two-Time. I was slicker than New York City, more cocoa buttery than the Hawaiian Islands, and I brought polygons to a Wyoming sprite fight.

But here’s the thing. It wasn’t just my unparalleled prowess with a joystick that gave me the edge. It wasn’t just my skill at The Legend of Zelda and Ninja Gaiden and Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! and every other Nintendo game ever created.

No, what truly made me superior to everyone else at that tournament was the journey I’d taken to get there. No one else had struggled the way I had. No one else had walked the roads for miles on end. No one else had scrounged for food at a hard-luck Denny’s or battled psychos in the street in his He-Man pajamas.

Instead, they drove there in their fancy cars or flew there in their private jets or whatever it is that soft men do. Or, in the case of the Wyoming guy, I guess he really did backpack all the way from Wyoming to Marine World, but whatever—who won at Mario Kart? So fuck him.

I’d looked down that long, scary, dark alleyway of fear and I kept on pushing ahead. And that strength I gained, that experience, that toughness drove me past every competitor, through every round of the tournament—the quarterfinals, the semifinals, the semi-semifinals, the Sweet Sixteen, the Final Four, the Two of Hearts (Two Hearts That Beat as One). I won them all handily.

Up on the Champion’s Platform, surrounded by thousands of screaming fans, with klieg lights shining down and Cypress Hill’s “Hand on the Pump” slapping on the giant Bose speakers and Brokaw and Jennings and Wolf covering our every move and Bubbles the Killer Whale ramming against the glass of his big-ass aquarium, my very last battle was about to begin.