James Holzhauer made his triumphant return to the Jeopardy! stage this month for the Tournament of Champions and, in typical Holzhauer fashion, rolled through the early rounds to the Final, where he was able to exact some revenge on Emma Boettcher (not without some late drama) to win the tournament and further cement his place as one of the all-time greats.
Many wondered what would be next for Holzhauer on Jeopardy! and when he might be back on TV flexing his trivia knowledge, and the folks at Jeopardy! and ABC were happy to oblige the nation with some info on exactly that. It was announced on Monday that this January they’ll have a GOAT Tournament between Holzhauer, Ken Jennings, and Brad Rutter, the three players Alex Trebek has dubbed as the best to ever grace the stage.
The trio will square off in a tournament that could last between three and seven days, with the winner taking home $1 million once he wins three matches against the other two super-competitors. The announcement had the Jeopardy! community abuzz and Holzhauer, being the way he is on Twitter, decided to have some fun and do a little Steiner Math on Twitter to explain why he’s going to dominate Jennings and Rutter this January.
Before we get to Holzhauer’s tweet thread, for those that don’t know (or those that just want to bask in an all-time ridiculous wrestling promo again), here is Scott Steiner’s infamous Steiner Math promo from TNA ahead of a triple threat match for the heavyweight title with Kurt Angle and Samoa Joe.
It’s a true classic and Holzhauer decided to break that out before his triple-threat Jeopardy! showdown with Jennings and Rutter for quality Twitter trash talk.
— James Holzhauer (@James_Holzhauer) November 18, 2019
See, normally if you go one on one with another @Jeopardy contestant, you got a 50/50 chance of winning. But I'm a genetic freak and I'm not normal! So you got a 25%, AT BEST, at beat me. Then you add @bradrutter to the mix, your chances of winning drastic go down.
— James Holzhauer (@James_Holzhauer) November 18, 2019
See the 3 way at the GOAT, you got a 33 1/3 chance of winning, but I, I got a 66 and 2/3 chance of winning, because @bradrutter KNOWS he can't beat me and he's not even gonna try!
— James Holzhauer (@James_Holzhauer) November 18, 2019
So @KenJennings, you take your 33 1/3 chance, minus my 25% chance and you got an 8 1/3 chance of winning the GOAT. But then you take my 75% chance of winning, if we was to go one on one, and then add 66 2/3 per cents, I got 141 2/3 chance of winning the GOAT.
— James Holzhauer (@James_Holzhauer) November 18, 2019
See Ken, the numbers don't lie, and they spell disaster for you in January.
— James Holzhauer (@James_Holzhauer) November 18, 2019
The best part of this is, there’s a very strong chance Jennings and Rutter have no idea what this promo is and here comes math wiz James Holzhauer doing weird fractions and percentages that otherwise make no sense in any normal context.
The GOAT Tournament figures to be highly entertaining, as we get to see exactly where Holzhauer stands against the man that’s won the most games in Jeopardy! history and a man who’s never lost to another human and has the biggest cash winning total in the show’s history. We’ll have to see what other classic wrestling promos Holzhauer has up his sleeve in the lead up.