They’re Gr-r-rape!

Tony the Tiger and Sir Grapefellow to Do Battle to Crown Lucky Memorial Cup Champion

BATTLE CREEK, MI -- Sir Grapefellow is on the verge of finishing what could be the greatest Cinderella story in the history of combat sports.

When the bracket for the Lucky Memorial Cup tournament was released last April, it was a foregone conclusion that Tony the Tiger would emerge victorious from the Kellogg’s Division.

It has surprised no one that he blazed a path to the finals, literally killing each of his opponents within seconds, even though these aren’t supposed to be fights to the death. But, to be fair, he is a tiger.

Meanwhile, there was vigorous debate about who would advance through the General Mills side. Count Chocula was the favorite by a slim margin, being a vampire and everything, but the division was also stacked with industry giants such as Frankenberry, BuzzBee and the Trix Rabbit. There was even some speculation that Chef Wendell, who had come out of retirement to compete for the late Lucky Charms mascot’s vast fortune, might reach the finals.

Yet, it was the mascot you’d least suspect who will face the Frosted Flakes representative in the tournament finals this Saturday night.

Sir Grapefellow’s thaumaturgic journey to this point has the sport’s top analysts baffled.

“When I first saw his name in the bracket, I assumed it was a mistake, or a hoax,” Combat Sports Enthusiast’s Greg Rumsby told me in a recent interview. “No one had heard a peep from that curtain-jerker since 1978. To be honest, I thought he was dead.” With a chuckle, he added, “And I suppose he will be soon if he gets in the cage with Tony.”

Of the over-ten-million people who filled in fantasy brackets on the LMC’s official website, only 18-year-old Nathan Lazdunski predicted Sir Grapefellow making it this far.

“I’m actually as surprised as anyone,” the James Hopkins High School senior confessed as we spoke over Zoom. “I just put Grapefellow in the finals as a joke, just to show my friends so we could, like, laugh at the sheer absurdity of the idea.”

When I asked Lazdunski why he didn’t take the joke all the way and predict a Grapefellow victory in the finals, he laughed at me. “I’m not an idiot! I know that if you put a man in a cage with a tiger, the tiger is going to kill that man. I’m not stupid.”

Nathan Lazdunski isn’t alone. I reached out to dozens of people, asking if they thought Grapefellow stood any kind of chance against Tony the Tiger. They all laughed and hung up on me, like they thought it was some kind of prank call.

The powers-that-be in Vegas have taken their pessimism a step farther, refusing to even take bets on the bout. As one oddsmaker stated, “The odds of [Grapefellow] lasting even one round before Tony ends his life are so astronomical, there’s not enough money in the world to pay a guy out if he put a dollar on it. I’m not even exaggerating.”

“I think I have a real chance,” Grapefellow told me during a break from his rigorous training schedule yesterday. He seemed motivated and confident, as if he hadn’t read any of the reports, as if he didn’t realize that, in just a few days, he’d be stepping into a cage to fight a literal, actual tiger.

When asked if he was aware that his opponent had devoured the bodies of his previous victims, the vitamin-charged mascot responded, “Sure, Tony breezed through the Kellogg’s Division, while I’ve had a tougher go of things, but look at the strength of my competition. I had to fight a rabid cuckoo bird, the entire US men’s Olympic rowing team that Wheaties sent in, and a mythical monster in Count Chocula. And who has Tony faced? A green rooster with no eyeballs and a couple of elves named after the sounds bones make when they break. I’m not saying he doesn’t deserve to be in the finals. I’m just saying I’m not sure he’s been tested.”

When asked how he could be so confident about fighting a tiger with his bare hands, he said, “I’ve watched the tape and studied his tendencies. I mean, as much as one can study them, given that none of his fights lasted longer than 15 seconds before he bit his opponent’s head off. But I think I’ve found a couple of openings. I think I’m going to surprise a lot of people.”

In my search for any other human on the planet who can conceive a Grapefellow victory, I interviewed his wife, Nancy, at their hotel in Kalamazoo.

“I begged him not to do this,” she said as she trembled in her chair. “I begged him. I literally got down on my knees, and… I… Oh, God!” she commented before breaking down and sobbing uncontrollably into her hands.

“I don’t want to lose my husband this way!” she cried. “I don’t want my children to have no father!” She then rose from her chair, grabbed me by the collar of my shirt and shook me. “Why is he doing this? Tell me why he’s doing this!” she demanded, as if she thought this small-town reporter had access to her husband’s thoughts and desires.

One person who might have some notion of what Grapefellow is thinking is his long-time rival Baron Von Redberry, who has been keenly observing the LMC from his home in Heidelberg, Germany.

When I spoke with the WWI veteran over the phone, he shared this insight: “I think he’s so set on fighting Tony because he knows he’s not just fighting for himself. He’s fighting for every mascot who’s been kicked to the curb. I’m damn proud of him for what he’s doing.”

I was surprised to hear the berry-flavored baron speak of his arch nemesis with such veneration.

“It’s no secret that we’ve had our differences in the past,” he admitted, “but when General Mills took us off the shelves in favor of more marketable mascots like that sugary monument to repugnance, Count Chocula, I think we formed an unspoken bond over that.”

In recalling watching Grapefellow defeat the delicious vampire in their division final matchup, Von Redberry said things got pretty emotional for him. “It was the first time I’d ever cried in front of anyone. I couldn’t hold it back. I was overwhelmed, I think because ever since we got discontinued, I’ve been sitting with this feeling of not being wanted, you know, of not being good enough. So,when Grapefellow’s hand was raised, it was like he had proven to General Mills that they were wrong to discontinue us back in ’78. He had proven that we still had a lot to give, that everyone had taken him too lightly. That everyone had taken all of us abandoned mascots too lightly. So, it felt like I’d won something, too.”

When asked if he thought his Royal Flying Corps counterpart had any chance of pulling off one more upset in the tournament final, the former Luftstreitkräfte pilot’s voice became cold. “No. There’s no way. He’s fighting a tiger. He’s going to die.”

Which takes me back to the question Nancy asked me as she wept helplessly: Why is Sir Grapefellow doing this?

Maybe it’s because fighting Tony the Tiger isn’t about winning or losing. Maybe it’s about a long-forgotten mascot proving he still had a lot of milk left in the bottle, decades after everyone thought he’d passed his expiration date.

And, from that angle, regardless of whether he puts up any kind of a fight, regardless of whether he is torn limb from limb, regardless of whether his insides are consumed right there in front of his wife and children, Sir Grapefellow has already won.