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S2E1 Season 2 Preview: New Blood & Old Grudges
20 Plays26 days ago
Season 2 is here — and the Carnage Region is officially open for business.
In this preview episode, we break down the brand-new bracket, announce EVERY new contestant joining Season 2, and look back at a few standout moments from Season 1 that helped shape what’s coming next.
Along the way, things get… off the rails. Jordan’s search history comes under fire (yes, it involves an alarming number of shirtless Alan Ritchson photos), Chris — and his dad — continue their emotional attachment to not one but two Boston-based characters from this season, and we launch a brand new nickname for a big FFC fan: 'Escape From Santa Rosa Tony.'
New matchups. New carnage. Same questionable judgment.
Welcome to Season 2!
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction of the Tournament
00:00:07
Speaker
This is the fictional fighting championship podcast, the ultimate battleground where Hollywood's deadliest warriors collide. We're a taking 48 of the most ruthless, skilled, and battle-hardened fighters from movies and TV and throwing them into a no-holds-bar tournament to see who survives.
00:00:26
Speaker
You've seen the movies, you know the legends. Now it's time to settle the score.
00:00:39
Speaker
I'm Jordan Guerrero. I'm Christian Doherty. And I'm Steve Sadler. And this is a podcast about the greatest fictional tournament in the history of the universe. And that's not even an exaggeration.
Excitement for Season Two
00:00:50
Speaker
Guys, we're back. Back by popular demand. Let's go. Season two. I never thought the funding would come through. Just when you think it's over, it just keeps coming back.
00:01:02
Speaker
Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in. Wait, there's there's funding? Yeah. but you're getting paid answers were You didn't know about this? I thought those were fake.
00:01:17
Speaker
No way. One Liner Academy is putting my kid through school. Alpha male tactical cologne. Absolutely real. Hey guys, before we
Potential Contestants from 'The Running Man'
00:01:26
Speaker
start, I have to tell you this. I'm actually spending my upcoming weekend researching future contestants. And that's my way of saying that I'm going to be going to see The Running Man starring Glenn Powell.
00:01:37
Speaker
Hell yeah. Yeah. If this is what I think it is, we're going to be adding Ben Richards in one of our remaining opening slots. For sure, he makes a nice replacement for the multitude of Arnold Schwarzenegger characters out there. so yeah yeah it's ah Yeah, it's really cool. i'm I'm excited. I actually haven't even seen the original, so I'm going to watch the original and the new one. Yeah, just it looks like like a pretty unhinged film.
00:02:02
Speaker
and And it seems like from the trailers, at least, they did it justice. Yeah, I hope so. Oh, this is a Stephen King novel? Oh yeah. Yeah, it was. i'm I'm a total sucker for this genre, like a sub genre of anytime there's a group of like these elite hunters are usually like rich assholes. And then they get bored with hunting animals and decide it's time to hunt humans.
00:02:24
Speaker
I'm already in right. I'm totally fully in right now. And then tell me that the the person that's being hunted has these secret hidden skills, like untapped potential or something that nobody knew about. And I'm at the theater 10 minutes early and I will never, ever apologize for this.
00:02:41
Speaker
Do you want to actually hear just from my memory? I made a little list of this exact same plot line where they're hunting humans. Okay. as I was just going to say there's that there's so many shared plot lines. Do you want to guess any? are there any that you remember first?
00:02:56
Speaker
Like Hunger Games obviously jumps out. Yep. But I can think of, you know, the old ex-combat veteran who is retired and living a quiet life and then is pulled back into the fray. That's a whole different subgenre that I'm equally enamored with.
00:03:14
Speaker
That's the one I can think of the most. But yeah, being hunted, let's let's hear it. Okay, we have The Running Man with Arnold and now Glenn Powell. We have The Hunger Games, Surviving the Game, starring Ice-T.
00:03:27
Speaker
Ice-T. The Condemned, starring Stone Cold Steve Austin. Wow, you're really going deep. Yeah, I've seen, and and I'm telling you, I saw all of these. I've watched all these. I remembered these in my brain, and I have and i've just wrote them down here. All the ones I could think of.
00:03:43
Speaker
Stone Cold Steve Austin. No Escape, starring Liotta. Apex, starring Bruce Willis. Absolutely horrendous movie. Terrible. Any of them good? Yeah, they all are except that one.
00:03:55
Speaker
ah Hard Target starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, which we may or may not mention here in a few minutes. And um there's even a limited series that I saw on, I think it was Tubi or one of those that you've never heard of, right? It was this like like a limited series with Liam Hemsworth well it's called The Most Dangerous Game. Yeah.
00:04:16
Speaker
Chris Hemsworth's brother. Interesting. piece also the buter Most Dangerous Game. Yeah. I think all of these are based on that book, right? Yeah. No, I'm pretty sure that Hard Target is. I read that today. I can read.
00:04:30
Speaker
Yeah. Hard Target. that Yeah. We're going to talk about that in a minute. I won't i won't do any spoilers. Yeah. All
Recap of Season One
00:04:36
Speaker
right. Should we do this? Let's jump into it. The gauntlet. Let's jump. Let's do the gauntlet. Let's just do it. Let's run the gauntlet.
00:04:44
Speaker
Let's run the gauntlet. On who? Wait.
00:04:48
Speaker
Throwing the gauntlet on Steve. can we Can we get a tail of the tape? just trying to Just trying to throw Steve off here. Yeah, I'm not confused. yeah Anyway, carry on, Steve. But, okay. So today, today we're launching season two.
00:05:00
Speaker
Of course, this is the Fictional Fighting Championship podcast. It's a very special episode. Not the one where the main character or the main character's friend gets a drug addiction in one episode and then it's very sad. No, this is a very special episode in that we're kicking off a brand new season of Mayhem. We're going to talk about some of season one's favorite moments briefly, and then we're going to give you guys a little preview of season two. So I'm totally ready to do this. Let's jump in.
00:05:27
Speaker
First off, anybody want to remind our readers the two from season one who advanced into the Apex 8? Yeah, these two c contestants were well-earned. The first one, John Rambo.
00:05:38
Speaker
He beat Man With No Name and Joel Miller from Last of Us. Man With No Name, definitely a little outgun there. Joel Miller from The Last of Us. He was kicking people's asses left and right. So John Rambo had a tough fight and he came out on top.
00:05:50
Speaker
He has clearly won his position there. Chris, who else do we have? We also have Christian Wolfe, also known as The Accountant. He definitely started off in our minds, I think, as a sleeper. he He was sort of an underdog in a way, quietly doing his thing in the first couple of episodes. And we started to realize very quickly that he has a very particular set of skills. and is just really, really great at what he does. And he went all the way defeating some difficult contenders, especially in his final fight against King Leonidas. And he came out on top and we have ah John Rambo and Christian Wolfe going through in the Apex 8.
00:06:26
Speaker
I like the bit of foreshadowing you had there. Wolfe had a particular set of skills. o But what I do have are a very particular set of skills. You might hear more about that from other contestants.
00:06:40
Speaker
That was a fun season. and And Chris, you nailed it. If it's possible for someone in this tournament to be a sleeper, I think Christian Wolfe was the sleeper because every time we're like, God damn it. No, this guy has has very few weaknesses.
00:06:52
Speaker
Did you guys have a yeah ah favorite moment or favorite episode or favorite character we ran in season one? I did. Yeah, for sure. you That being my favorite episode, Leonidas.
00:07:04
Speaker
This is Sparta. Versus William Wallace.
00:07:21
Speaker
Just a really interesting episode in that I think they were the, you know out of anyone in the tournament, these two were the most similar to one another. Both you know historical figures, leading armies, similar sets of skills, you know primitive weapons, hand-to-hand combat, and ah leaders of men. So just a really cool, interesting matchup to see. And I think I want to say the closest matchup we had. It was a really difficult decision. I myself picked William Wallace. I couldn't go against him, despite the fact that I think Leonidas was definitely top dog.
00:07:54
Speaker
Wallace was an underdog in that fight, but he's just so inspiring. And ah the the movie is just so great that I couldn't bring myself to to vote against him. and That episode got among the top number of comments of any of our episodes right there. So know it was a little bit controversial, but I think we got the right winner.
00:08:12
Speaker
think we did too. My favorite episode easily had to have been Machete. Machete don't take.
00:08:22
Speaker
He was probably the worst person in the tournament, but one of the best movies to watch. I saw Machete, I don't know, I was playing high school or something like that. Machete has great rewatchability, but it's got to be like 10 years since you've last seen it. Like, I'm going to really enjoy this when I turn 40 and i watch Machete again. It was absolutely ridiculous. And the only reason I would watch that movie again.
00:08:44
Speaker
I'll say the reason he's even in this tournament is because I hadn't seen that movie in more than 10 years. Had I remembered it vividly, I would have known how over the top it was. He probably would have been disqualified before he even got in this thing. yeah Yeah. He existed in the same universe as Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote. Bingo. That's a great yeah analogy.
00:09:05
Speaker
Steve, how are you? Yeah, I went a little bit different. I picked a favorite moment. And for me, the favorite moment in season one has to be our mini episode. We had a special guest before our Jax Teller versus Man with No Name matchup. And we somehow landed Chris Reed, who's also known as Filthy Phil from Sons of Anarchy. Three seasons on that show. I don't know, three or four seasons on that show, maybe. He's a legit fan favorite, kind of a crowd pleaser. And we learned just an awesome guy in real life.
00:09:33
Speaker
So if you skip that episode, I would say definitely go back and check that out. I asked Chris for like a quick 30 second take on who might win that matchup. And instead, what he delivered was like a full 10 minute scouting report. He did strengths, weaknesses, the mindset of Jax Teller. He basically broke down Jax using the MLB's 20 to 80 scale, like he was evaluating ah a top prospect. So if you're familiar with baseball, you know that scale. He did that for Jax Teller. And for a show that hadn't even, I don't even think we released our first full episode yet at that point, but to get someone straight from the Sons of Anarchy universe, it felt really huge and very cool to say the least.
Engaging Listeners and Announcing Season Two
00:10:11
Speaker
I thought it was a big early win for us. And honestly, I think it was a great way to launch this whole season one thing with a bang. While we're on the topic of previous episodes, I just want to say if you're liking what you hear, give us a follow on Instagram. Even better, hit follow on Spotify or Apple Podcasts so you never miss a show. If you like a particular episode, if you love the movies, if you share that love of film with a friend, and send a specific episode to them. That would really help us out.
00:10:39
Speaker
Just wanted to say thanks for being a listener, even if it's your first time, and hope you come back. Should we preview season two and give the listeners a little bit of a spoiler? Let's do it. Let's do it.
00:10:50
Speaker
All right. So you're familiar with the bracket, of course. We did not do this before season one started, and I kind of wish we did. So that's what we're going to do this time. We're not going to keep it a secret until it airs. We're going to give you the bracket so you can follow along, and I think it'll be more fun for the listeners.
00:11:07
Speaker
And these are in no particular order, but I will tell you that this is actually going to be the first matchup. It's Ip Man versus Brian Mills from Taken. Okay. This is a fun one. This matchup kind of sums up the chaos of this tournament, right? We have Ip Man and Brian Mills. Ip Man is literally the only character in this entire bracket I didn't know anything about going in. So it's a total blind spot for me. Meanwhile, Brian Mills is just the opposite. I've practically memorized Taken. I might have seen that movie more times than I've seen my own family. So kind of the opposite there as far as my familiarity with it.
00:11:40
Speaker
But then the winner of that fight doesn't get to celebrate for too long because the next matchup for the winner is Jason Bourne. Jesus Christ. That's Jason Bourne.
00:11:51
Speaker
And he's one of the handful of true apex predators that I had flagged way back at the beginning. And just a quick reminder for our new listeners, the initial seeding and the bracketing was based purely on my memory before I did any research. And it's not a prediction tool at all. It's just a way to kind of keep it fair. And it was to keep myself honest at the very beginning. So don't read too much into the seeds. The fact that Jason Bourne got a buy doesn't mean he's going to be advancing necessarily. ah Just know that whoever survives Mills versus Ip Man they're going to be stepping into the deep end against Bourne.
00:12:23
Speaker
You touched on this briefly, Steve, not knowing Ip Man. Just think that this podcast is a really great opportunity to learn about new films. You know, I myself haven't heard of some of these characters as well, and it gives me the opportunity to go and watch the films and really enjoy them. And so if you, as a listener, see, you know, we have a matchup and there's someone that you don't know, go watch the film, do some research of your own so that when you listen to the episode, you can kind of bring your own perspective and ideas and, you know, drop a comment or something. And you can argue with us. You can interact with us on Instagram as well.
00:12:56
Speaker
My biggest wish about announcing the fights first is that somebody will come back to us and say, Hey, I watched both movies before the episode aired, just so I could be ready for the episode.
00:13:07
Speaker
That would be like my dream come true.
Intriguing Matchups Discussion
00:13:09
Speaker
All right. Next one's super exciting here. We've got Indiana Jones.
00:13:18
Speaker
versus Sarah Connor. I'll be back. Indy, one of my most watched childhood movies. Super excited to have him in here. is going to be huge nostalgia for everyone watching this. It doesn't matter when you were born. You love Indiana Jones.
00:13:30
Speaker
Fun fact, the fourth movie doesn't exist. So i don't I think we should consider it. I don't know if that was fun or a fact. Fun fact about Sarah Connor, I'll give you this one though. Linda Hamilton, the actress for Sarah Connor, like the good one, not Amelia Clark in her role as Sarah Connor in the later Terminator movies. She actually had a twin. So when there's a scene where she has like a body double and the T-1000 is coming up, that's her twin. No way. No CGI involved. Yeah. Wild.
00:13:59
Speaker
No camera tricks there. And then the last one here, Indy versus Sarah. Winner of that is going to take on Jack fucking Reacher. Hmm. And we're doing the TV version here, Jack Reacher. Sorry, Tom Cruise, but Alan Richson is fucking shredded, and he is the real Jack Reacher.
00:14:17
Speaker
Dude is massive. man cycles Trenton for breakfast. Yeah, he's an absolute maniac. I'm on my work computer. I hope IT doesn't ask why my search history has so many shirtless pictures of Alan Richson. I'm going to leave that in.
00:14:31
Speaker
Yeah. Chris, let's spoil a couple more. Hell yeah. I'm really excited to announce this one. I'm glad that you picked me for this one for reasons that we'll get into in a minute. But I will be revealing that in one of the first matchups of the Carnage region, we have Chance Boudreaux from Hard Target up against Ray Donovan from the TV series Ray Donovan.
00:14:54
Speaker
Chance Boudreaux is an ex-Force Recon Marine. So Force Recon is a division of the Marines that's like the equivalent to the Navy SEALs, which I was interested to to find out.
00:15:05
Speaker
And Ray Donovan is a professional fixer. He's involved with with gangsters. His job is to bribe, you know do cover-ups, threaten people, crime scene cleanup for his for his clients. So yeah, I think kind of a two different styles, I would say, for these two.
00:15:21
Speaker
Reason number one. and Before you do that, for the listeners who maybe don't recognize the name Chance Boudreau, tell them who that is. Oh, that's, so yeah, Chance Boudreau is Jean-Claude Van Damme.
00:15:32
Speaker
And yeah, I'm glad you have me covering this matchup, Steve, for a few reasons. Reason number one, the most important one being Chance Boudreau and that sweet, sweet mullet. You all know, well, if you've listened to season one, you'll know that I'm obsessed with hairstyles from all of these different films, especially when it's long and flowing, especially if if it's a mullet. anything from the 80s. Yeah, I i love Jean-Claude Van Damme. I grew up watching his films.
00:15:56
Speaker
ah Street Fighter, especially me and my brother had that one on repeat. Bloodsport is another great one. Number two, Ray Donovan is from Boston. I live in Boston. if ah you know That's right. none of you Wait a minute. Isn't your dad a big Ray Donovan fan?
00:16:11
Speaker
That's what I was going to say next. Isn't your dad Ray Donovan? What's funny about that is yes, my dad loves the series and he calls himself the fixer because he, I don't know. Does anyone call him the fixer?
00:16:23
Speaker
I call him the fixer. He, you know, he, he likes to think that he's always there for his friends. If they ever need any help, he's always there to fix whatever they need. Yeah. He, he considers himself somewhat of a gangster, I guess in, in the area that we live in, in Boston. Fun fact. I once walked past leave Schreiber in downtown Boston.
00:16:41
Speaker
And I did a double take. I wasn't sure completely that it was him. he was wearing sunglasses and he was walking his dogs. And I didn't have the courage to say hello to him. But yeah, I walked past him. That was interesting.
00:16:52
Speaker
Anyway, the winner of these two, Chance Boudreaux versus Ray Donovan, will be facing Robert McCall from the Equalizer series. also a Boston-based film series played by Denzel Washington, one of my favorite actors of all time. Steve and I have gotten into it a little bit off of it. i argue that this is not Denzel's best character for this tournament, which interesting let's get into maybe a little bit later for that. I can't wait. It's going to be a great episode.
00:17:20
Speaker
Should we spoil the last two characters also? We might as well, right?
Villains and Cult Characters
00:17:24
Speaker
Go for it. So the last two that are in this division of the bracket are Anton Chigurh from No Country for Old Men against Snake Plissken from Escape from New York.
00:17:34
Speaker
So that's a fun one. I'm pretty pumped up about this one. Our bracket's full of these action heroes, full of anti-heroes, but Anton Chigurh, I think he might be the only true villain in this entire tournament, which is kind of interesting, right? That's a cool observation, yeah.
00:17:48
Speaker
and Yeah, it's a little teaser for potentially you know season 20 of Fictional Fighting Championship where we we do a full season of only villains, which would be awesome. I'm ah i'm a big villain fan.
00:18:01
Speaker
That'd be awesome. We have some good villains in this bracket as side characters. But yeah, that's going to be a great one. And the fact that he's going up against Snake Plissken, who is kind of an 80s cult icon, right? One of the reasons he's in this tournament, he was referred to me by Jordan's dad, Tony.
00:18:18
Speaker
Now listen, Tony here, he claims that he has deep expertise in violence and wilderness combat and all this from growing up in like the rugged, unforgiving terrain of of Sonoma's wine country. And from this day forward, we are going to refer to Tony only as Escape from Santa Rosa Tony.
00:18:41
Speaker
You know, you said my dad referred that movie. I assume everyone was super familiar with that movie, but I certainly was. I mean, how many times did he play it for me? i bet. Yeah, I can imagine. You've probably seen it more than I have. Steve, I had a lot of preconceived notions before moving to New York. Everything I knew about it was from Snake Plissken.
00:18:58
Speaker
ah So let me ask you guys, were you familiar with all these characters? Not a chance. Chance Bordeaux? I mean, I know of Jean Van Coutt. Jean-Claude Van Damme. Get his name right. God damn it. You get, you get, you get, you get the whole Pablo Pascal. Get his name right.
00:19:16
Speaker
Hard target guy. Not at all familiar with that movie. It's going to be a totally new one for me. Okay. Is it weird that I'm less familiar with that than I am with snake Plissken? No, they're both cult type followings. and And honestly, I'm sure I've seen Escape from New York and and heard more references to that than I have Hard Target. Hard Target just happens to be kind of the most deadly and most trained of all the Jean-Claude Van Damme characters, in my opinion. That's why he's here. But Bloodsport is probably more a famous movie, wouldn't you think?
00:19:45
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. But he just has no combat. He's just a hand-to-hand fighter. So that's what that's what was up with that. I was unaware of Snake Plissken, but i'm ah I'm a big Kurt Russell fan.
00:19:57
Speaker
Oh, good. Yeah. He's played some great, great characters. Let me ask you this. What character
Potential Matchups and Season Two Hype
00:20:02
Speaker
are you looking forward to the most in this season or maybe even a matchup, anything like that? And I kind of want to go first.
00:20:10
Speaker
I look at this bracket and it's fucking loaded, man. This thing is even more loaded than the first one. Try to pick four characters, right? That are going to finish in the final four and then try to pick two more that are, that are going to advance. It's just very, very difficult, but The one thing that I would be most interested in seeing, and I don't know if this matchup is going to happen, but I really would love to see Brian Mills from Taken go against Robert McCall from Equalizer. These are two of the most rewatchable action movies of the last 20 years. And trust me, I've stress tested that theory. It's gotten to the point where my wife and I sit down at night and I ask, Hey, what what should we watch? She'll literally say, how about anything but Equalizer? So i'm I'm putting that to the test. I feel like putting these two movies up against each other, it's like, hey, do you watch Deep Impact or Armageddon?
00:20:57
Speaker
but Yeah, they're identical. yeah They are. and And these two, both of these characters kind of represent that new newer wave of action filmmaking, right? You know, where it's kind of like efficient, ruthless, realistic style that's depicted there. It's not cartoonish at all. There's less one-liners and more just kind of what I call realistic brutality. And both of these guys fall into the, I tried to get away from my past, but I got forced to return type characters, right? So... there There's a lot of similarities there. And I just, man, I would love to see this match up in in the bracket. I don't know if it's going to happen, but if it's not in the cards, this just tells me that a whole nother tournament with realigned brackets is very doable. Pioneered a whole new genre.
00:21:40
Speaker
Totally. What about you guys? I think I'm most excited for Anton Chigurh because I don't know if there's anyone else like him in this tournament bracket. I'm trying to think who he most aligns with, and I start thinking about people like Hannibal Lecter in Dexter. He has that weird psychosis to him, and he has that ruthlessness, and he has that weird hair. And I'm just excited that he's in here.
00:22:04
Speaker
that That's a cool callback to season one, for sure. the listeners That was episode one, actually. Two serial killers going against each other. Oh, right. want to go back and listen to that. A matchup I'm most looking forward to that I announced just now. It would be the winner of Chance Boudreaux versus Ray Donovan going up against Robert McCall.
00:22:22
Speaker
Yeah. So I think that Robert McCall would really have his work cut out for him in that in that matchup, whether it be Chance or Ray. Kind of an exciting first round matchup for for Robert McCall there. Your dad's going to go apeshit if it's Donovan and McCall. Yeah.
00:22:38
Speaker
There's two so many Boston ties, right? Boston, yeah. Yeah. He'd be pissed that you put two the two Boston guys up against each other. And that's the table setter for season two. We've got all new matchups, all new chaos, new upsets brewing for sure. And a whole lineup of characters who are about to shock us in ways we absolutely didn't plan for. If season one was kind of us finding our footing, season two is us kicking down the fucking door.
00:23:03
Speaker
So everybody buckle up, rewatch your favorites, place all your bets because this tournament is just about to get nuts. And season two is starting now. Trust me, listeners, you are not ready for what you're about to hear.
00:23:17
Speaker
And that's a goddamn fact. Oh, shit. I should have said that. yeah yeah la i
00:23:32
Speaker
Thank you for listening to the fictional fighting championship podcast, the world's premier destination for very serious conversations about completely made up fights produced by Chris Doherty against his better judgment.