Jeopardy! champs Ken Jennings and James Holzhauer now facing off on the true mental battlefield: Twitter

By William Hughes  |  May 4, 2019 | 11:56pm
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Jeopardy! champs Ken Jennings and James Holzhauer now facing off on the true mental battlefield: Twitter
Photo: Ben Hider

Well, it’s finally happened: Just as we summoned into being the Cardi B vs. Nicki fight, or the feud between Kanye West, and, well, everybody, now the collective will of the internet appears to have provoked an online rivalry between once-and-current Jeopardy! champs Ken Jennings and James Holzhauer. Several weeks into Holzhauer’s run on the show, the two trivia masters have finally begun directly addressing each other on social media, and while we definitely wouldn’t call it an intellectual blood feud just yet, well, one can only hope:

What’s most interesting about this friendly little squabble is who appears to have picked it: The social media team of Jeopardy! itself, which released a gambling-themed video (presumably as a nod to Holzhauer’s non-trivia-based day job) that ends with a pointed reminder that he’s still got 53 games more to go before beating Jenning’s legacy. (In terms of length, at least, if not earned cash, where he might surpass the more conservative Jennings in relatively short order.) Both men apparently rose to the bait, and a very gentle war on that most cerebral of battlefields—Twitter—has now begun.

Lest anyone think there’s much ire behind any of these little pokes, though, rest assured: Both men have talked about their admiration for each other extensively already, with Jennings expressing a fascination with Holzhauer’s aggressive betting style and command of the buzzer, and Holzhauer telling Newsweek, “I am in awe of Ken Jennings’s accomplishments, as all Jeopardy! fans are.” Of course, he also retweeted an article a few weeks ago calling for a face-off between the two men in the studio, so he might be feeling a bit more competitive than those words of veneration let on…

 
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