Monster Madness: A Monster King is Crowned
Our Monster Madness bracket tournament has come to an end and the rightful King of Monsters stands above all.
What’s that old saying from The Wire? The king stay the king? Well guess what, everyone: The king of monsters is staying the king.
Over the past two weeks, we have presented a carefully curated list of 32 monsters in a Monster Madness bracket tournament. One-by-one, these monsters faced off against one another, culminating in the long-awaited matchup between Godzilla and King Kong. Now that the punches have been thrown, the nuclear fire breath has been breathed, and the triumphant roars have been screamed, we have our winner.
Ladies and gentleman, presenting the official Den of Geek King of Monsters…
Gojira, Goji, Monster of Justice, God of Destruction, Kaiju Alpha, Big Guy, Nautilus, Godzilla – no matter what you call this big scaled beast, he now has but one title: King of Monsters.
Perhaps the most frightening thing about Godzilla in our Monster Madness tournament was how easy this all was for him. The first round pitted 1-seed Godzilla against The Blob from The Blob (1958). Unsurprisingly, Godzilla dominated in voting on @DenofGeekUS. In the second round, Godzilla got a bit of a break as 5-seed Quetzalcoatl pulled an upset* over 4-seed Yongary leading to an easier 1-5 matchup. ‘Zilla took care of that one easily as well.
*Maybe we seeded this whole enterprise a little too well. Throughout the length of the entire tournament, only two monsters pulled off upsets: the aforementioned 5-seed Quetzalcoatl and 3-seed Cthulhu in round 2 against 2-seed Slattern.
By round 3, however, the rest of the bracket had to know that Godzilla was out for blood and they were all in big trouble. King Ghidorah is a major monster who has given Godzilla issues in the past. And yet, Ghidorah was but a speed bump to the real King of Monsters. Then, in the Final Four, Godzilla took care of his biggest Toho rival by dominating fellow 1-seed Mothra.
The Final Round presented Godzilla with his greatest challenge yet: King Kong. In fairness to Skull Island’s champion, Kong did put up a bit of a fight. The final voting tally was 59.1% in favor of Godzilla and 40.9% for Kong. That 19 point margin is the closest that any monster got to defeating Godzilla by far. Unfortunately for all monke stans, it was not nearly enough.
Kong already has a chance for a quick rematch as Godzilla v. Kong is available to stream on HBO Max right now. It’s anyone’s guess how that monster competition will shake out, but if our readers’ votes are any indication, Godzilla is the people’s choice.
We’d like to extend a big thank you to all of you who participated in the Monster Madness polling this past couple of weeks and to all the monsters who lent their beastly might. See you all next March for whatever whimsical bracket we decide to unveil then!
Written by
TV Editor at Den of Geek and Television Critics Association member. Based in Cleveland, Ohio. Very upset about various sporting events.