Ken "The Coward" Jennings Says He Is Retiring From Jeopardy
AP- Here’s one thing “Jeopardy!” fans can bet on after a gripping “Greatest of All Time” tournament: there won’t be a rematch. “I’m out,” said Ken Jennings, the veteran who beat young hotshot James Holzhauer and Brad Rutter to take a $1 million prize in the tournament that stretched out over four entertaining nights on ABC’s prime-time schedule.
Jennings, who established himself in “Jeopardy!” lore by winning a still-record 74 games in a row in 2004, said in an interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday that he’s starting to feel his 45 years when it comes to high-stakes competition. “I’m really happy to get one last hurrah,” he said, “but I don’t think I can top this. At some point (host) Alex (Trebek) is going to retire and I can’t ever see playing with a different host, quite honestly. It wouldn’t be the same.”
I've seen my fair share of yellow-belly, chickenshit, flat out cowardice moves in my life. But Ken hanging up his buzzer and refusing to ever answer in the form of a question ever again after winning the Jeopardy GOAT Tournament takes the pussy cake. Ooof that sounds kinda gross. We'll call it the candy ass cake instead.
Look, I get Ken reaching the Jeopardy mountaintop then wanting to retire before any whispers of a rematch started circulating and James had a chance to recalibrate his motherboard by crushing the All 22 game tape like Ken did Bill Belichick style.
“I had looked at so much tape of James trying to figure the guy out and the only way to beat James is to become James,” he said. “You have to not be intimidated by his shock and awe approach to the game and you’re going to have to do it, too: hop around for the Daily Doubles, bet big at every opportunity. It just shows what a dominant player he is.”
But that's not how competition works. Can you imagine if every fighter called it a career once they took down a champion because they didn't want to lose their belt? It's not like Ken has taken on and defeated all challengers. He was getting dusted in Tournament of Champions matchups by that bozo Brad for years and not only got obliterated by Watson twice
But also went Benedict Arnold on his entire species.
There is noooooo wayyyyyy James would have taken his ball and gone home if he had won the Jeopardy GOAT Tournament. You know why? Because he loves the game and Alex Trebek too much. I imagine James would have looked to avenged mankind's biggest L in the war of Man Vs. Machine by calling out Watson's big blue bitch computer ass out before the credits ran because that's the kind of (hu)man James is. The ratings for the GOAT Tournament were through the goddamn roof and you have to imagine that after 35+ years of hosting a bunch of nerds on stage, Trebek loved being involved in the highest level of competition the show has ever seen along with the straight cash homie that comes with being the host of a monster hit.
Instead, Trebek is grinding with the typical riff raff that comes with regular episodes of Jeopardy.
I have to imagine he misses the days of asking questions that the audience at home couldn't even understand in the highest form of competition and roasting the shit out of Brad. Now that Jennings has retired however, any tournament between the greats will be missing the GOAT guy that won a trophy last week but has never even beaten Watson. If Jennings wanted to retire when Trebek did, I'd understand. In fact, I'd encourage it since Jeopardy will never be the same whenever the Gameshow Gawd rides off into the sunset. But there will always be a question of "Who's the GOAT" whenever the next Ken or James come around that will never be answered because chicKen Jennings didn't have the gumption to defend his title.
Actually now that I think about it, maybe it's for the best Ken retired now because we all know how he handled playing James' style of Jeopardy.
Here is my republishing during the work day penance since I published this blog on Saturday night when people other than losers like myself were doing fun stuff before the McGregor fight: