• by George Simpson , Featured Contributor, September 28, 2007

Rather than continue to make random acquisitions in an arms race that recalls the Mutual Assured Destruction strategy used in the first cold war, the Big Four have met and decided to settle matters "the old-fashioned way." Accordingly, Microsoft's newly knighted Brian McAndrews, AOL Platform A's Curt "I'm Back" Viebranz, Yahoo's Hilary "Not My Numbers" Schneider, and a bus driver from the new Google employee transportation pool will square off in a ring surrounded by a 20-foot-high chain link enclosure and fight until but one still stands.

Tempers are already strained, as three of the contestants wonder why Google isn't sending a more senior level management representative to the fight, with one surmising, "The driver probably has tattoos and a record as long as a Google search result." Google had no official comment, but sources there tell Over the Line that with a double major in Economics and Sociologyfrompanty-waistConnecticut College, Tim Armstrong doesn't feel "that violence will resolve anything" and suggested a game of bridge as an alternative.

Odds-makers are handicapping the players, searching their backgrounds for any clues that they are capable of the extreme violence necessary to win what has come to be known as the "The Pugilistic Polemics at the Portal."

"These guys all went to Harvard in one way or another, except the driver, who got his GED at Lompoc, so that's a scratch," says one Las Vegas bookie. "Got a Brown in there, a Stanford, a Middlebury... nothin' that says 'I'm gonna rip your heart out and stomp on it while it's still beatin,' ya know?"

"Boards," says a reputed New York gambler. "Ya got these guys all sitting on boards: *TACODA, CareerBuilder.com, Classified Ventures, WhitePages.com, Inc., Topix, Blue Nile, ShopLocal and for Christ's sake, the Seattle-Northwest chapter of the National Association of Corporate Directors. Not a WWF in the lot of them. At least the driver has a surf board, that gives him a little edge."

Book makers in Chicago like the fact that Viebranz spent some years in Miami and South America. "Everyone knows that there are no legitimate businesses in Miami, that everything is a front for 'goods' coming out of the mountains of Columbia. You have to be a Tony-Montana-kind of guy to work down there," says one South Side bookie. "And what was he doing in South America? Not laying on no beach. I wouldn't be surprised if this guy knows a littleCapoeira. "

Observers are trying to determine if McAndrews' work for ABC Sports involved anything more strenuous than introducing advertisers to pro ball players. "Playing some golf with Michael Strahan doesn't really give you much of an edge in a death match," said one ad industry insider named Wenda, who asked to otherwise remain anonymous. "If he spent some time with Lawrence Taylor or rolled with Mike Tyson, he might have learned something useful for the P3."

The bookies say that Schneider's background of working for businesses that either failed, were sold as part of a fire sale, or are currently tanking, might indicate a subliminal toughness that could prove vital if the match goes long. "When you spend some time in dead-tree businesses like Schneider has, you have already been through the ringer a few times. She could be the dark horse," said a Las Vegas bookie.

There apparently are few rules for the P3. Opponents are free to bludgeon one another with CPM, CPC, behavioral targeting, CGM, search, contextual, paid listing, lead generation, direct navigation -- even the dreaded "engagement." The only weapons outlawed are pop-ups, pop-unders, takeover pages, SPAM, redirects and anything "viral."

Viebranz has been training at an undisclosed location surrounded by teams of "talking point" specialists grilling him for up to 18 hours a day. He denies that the recent New York Times photo was disinformation to give opponents the impression he is out of shape. "I feel good," Viebranz told Over the Line. "I'm running nearly 200 meters every day and am up to 17 sit-ups. More importantly, I have read all of *Dave Morgan's past Spin posts. I think I am ready for just about anything."

McAndrews claims that he has done nothing special to prepare for the match. "Look, man, I am younger than Curt and Hilary is a girl. I figure if I can get to the Google bus driver early and disable him with something snappy from my MBA days at Stanford like retrograde analysis, I will put myself in a position to take the whole match."

Schneider's camp is secretive about her pre-fight training, but insiders have leaked that she has extended her Bikram yoga sessions to an hour and a half and turned up the room temperature from 105^o to 120,^o and has been in touch with the delivery drivers from her newspaper days for tips on how to throw a sucker punch. Asked for comment, Schneider sent an email through a company spokesperson saying, "I find this whole butch-American, testosterone-loaded approach to business distasteful. Nevertheless, I will kick some serious ass."

"I look at the contestants and I see three middle-aged, white-collar suburbanites going up against a guy who spent time in the Big House for assault, manslaughter and domain theft," says George Bodenheimer, who will carry P3 on ESPN 8. "It looks like what will happen in the ring is no different from what is happening outside the ring. One guy is going to beat the immortal hell out of the other three."

*Full disclosure: TACODA is a client of mine. Judge for yourself if that means they have received any kind of preferential treatment in this piece. Or ponder if I might lose them as an account.

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