It's January. Which means it must be WHC time. Once again, it is time for the meanest, toughest, hardest beasts of the natural world to pit their wits, teeth, tails, claws, flippers and anything else they can muster against their foe to lift the prestigious WHC trophy.
But before we go on, I'm sure you would all like to join me in taking a moment to offer up applause for Mr. Gary Nelson's Left Foot, who has officiated this annual event with such distinction over the last decade. His is a unique legacy. He hands over what has become one of NSC's very own big beasts. I am informed that Mr. GNLF has taken up retirement and plans to spend more time with his menagerie of vicious headcases and tend to his variety of fascinating injuries acquired over years of refereeing inside the AnimalDome. Mr. GNLF. We salute you.
Also, a little housekeeping before we get on to the serious business. Firstly, I shall declare my own hand. In recent years I have been very much Team Honey Badger. I'm also very fond of rhinos. With this in mind, I hereby recuse myself from all voting rights in this year's edition of the WHC Cup. Please don't go sending me any THB based whining. It's out of my hands. I'm sure Bozza's heard quite enough about dummy accounts too. Leave him alone.
Secondly, I'm new at this. Be gentle with me. It may take a while.
How you define 'hard' is up to you but please be prepared to make a case for how you define your chosen creature as such. How you define creature is also another grey area. I'm not a student of zoology. Hell, I never even made it to uni so don't ask me what a creature even is. If anybody has objections to nominees and considers them to not be 'creature-y' enough then please make yourself heard before the initial group stage goes live. After that, it's a lock and all nominees will be considered. I reserve the right to remove what any reasonable person might consider to be a 'Noddy nomination'.
So without further ado, let the 11th WHC Cup begin. Please feel free to nominate any creature you feel has what it takes to complete at this level. All creatures will need to be seconded before they are allowed to proceed to the group stage. At this stage you do not need to offer your justification but be prepared to do so should your chosen mentalist appear in the group stage. This will feature four groups of 10. The initial 40 will be allocated on a first (sensibly) come first served basis. Nominations will close at 23:59 hours on Tuesday 9th January, as we will all lose one night getting bent out of shape about the Palace match.
The top four of each group will enter the knockout phase of the competition, starting with the second round before proceeding to the quarter final and you know the rest. There will be no seeding. It's a straight knockout competition with a draw being made before each round.
There are no exclusions this year. All-comers welcome. The Honey Badger is defending champion. Will the evil little bugger come out fighting or has it grown fat and complacent in the past year?
NSC. It's over to you.
