What Did Berkeley Win...and Other Awards

• From: JDinan8271
• Date: Mon, 02 Apr 2001 14:02:37 -0700
• Message-ID: <000TCHQ7D.0010F0BEM.12170551-quizbowl_at_...>

I've received a host of e-mails over the past
few
days asking me what the "mystery grand prize" was at
2001: A TRASHionals Oddity. All I said was that it came
from a "company that recently went under." What I can
say now...it was not a pair of sneakers, nor was it
from a dot-com company. 

But first...As
previously announced Christopher Walken's Dance Party
(Berkeley) won TRASHionals, defeating BATTLEPLANET!!
(Oklahoma + Ben Lea) in an exciting final-round affair.


For finishing second, BATTLEPLANET received a quartet
of "foot-in-the-mouth" sports books (books of quotes
from Albert Belle, Jesse Ventura and Charles Barkley,
as well as Keyshawn Johnson's autobiography), plus a
giant-head Rena "Sable" Mero action figure.

For
winning TRASHionals, Dance Party received a yard of beer
and four baseball caps. Then came the grand
prize...which they must bring
back to TRASHionals 2002 if
they want to play in that tournament (they have the
automatic invite, but they have to bring this award back).
What was this award? First, some backstory.

A
few weeks ago, I wrote a few columns for Internet
wrestling newspapers (1wrestling.com, PW Torch) on the WWF
Raw and Smackdown tapings I
attended at the MCI
Center in Washington, DC. After the RAW taping, I had
the chance to talk to Paul Heyman, the new Raw color
commentator who previously led a now-defunct wrestling
company called Extreme Championship Wrestling.

I
wished Mr. Heyman the best of his luck with his
WWF
endeavor, and asked him if I could have an ECW
memento I
could award for a trivia tournament in April. Mr.
Heyman agreed, and presented me with the award.

I
thought he would give me a T-shirt. Instead,
I
received something that has been worn by such men as Sabu,
Tazz, Jerry Lynn, Sandman, Steve Corino, Terry Funk and
Shane Douglas. 

It was the ECW WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT
CHAMPIONSHIP BELT.

The belt, complete with a TRASH logo
on the center plate to replace the ECW logo, is now
in the hands of Berkeley. Pictures
of said belt
should be posted soon on this
newsgroup.

James