Bruce Wayne

From The Great Outdoor Fight

Considerable controversy surrounds the participation -- if any -- of the notoriously reclusive and hedonistic billionaire in The Great Outdoor Fight. Sworn statements exist from participants in 1989 and 1990 who are certain they saw Wayne among the last hundred or so fighters left standing. Although details differ, all agree that he did not join in any army, took orders from no general and fought with a cold, calculating fury that suggested some prior training and experience. Attempts to clarify Wayne's status have been futile. No official record exists of Wayne qualifying for the fight. He could certainly have fought under a Soubriquet Rouge, but those who claim to have seen him in the Fight swear that when addressed, he answered to his own name (which would be unusual, to say the least, for someone fighting under an assumed name). Moreover, and tellingly, the official records of the 1989 and 1990 fights are each missing two entries: one listing from the registry of fighters for each year -- under the last names beginning with "W", no less. Furthermore, the tallys of who fell when in 1989 and 1990 are each short one name -- they only add to 2998, NOT the correct figure of 2999. While there are gaps and discrepancies from the written records of the earliest days of the Fight, these are the ONLY missing records since World War II. Did Wayne use his great wealth and influence to tamper with the Ruling Body's official records? Surely even he could not bribe the Ruling Body.

Some scholars of the Fight believe that Wayne never participated at all, and the missing records are simply the result of ordinary human carelessness. They contend that Wayne himself spread the rumor that he twice joined the Fight, taking advantage of the incomplete Fight records to give himself a reputation for brawling that he hasn't earned. The surviving participants of the 1989 and 1990 fights -- especially those who survived into the late afternoon of the third day -- insist that Bruce Wayne was indeed among them. One Fight survivor, a former petty felon who asked not be named because he "doesn't want to piss off a man who has more money than God and who can also crush a goddamn windpipe like he was squeezing a paper cup", described a bit of Wayne's fighting style: "I coulda sword there was nobody around me, and then he came down on me from up above and it was like God sent a demon to drag me to hell with all my bones broken. His voice . . . I can't remember exactly what he said, but it wasn't no trash talk, or the usual threats. Lemme tell ya, the way I got beat up was the LEAST scary thing about that guy!"

Perhaps their encounter with a wealthy celebrity briefly turned their heads, because the Fight survivors who claim to have fought Bruce Wayne also swear that he never fell. According to one man, "When there weren't but a few guys still standing, he waited until the generals were going at it, then he just . . . left. Dunno how, but he did. I was watching him close, I turned my head for a moment, and he was just gone, dammnit." This is highly unlikely, of course. Nobody in history has ever just "left" the fight once the Acres were locked. The practical difficulties in escaping from inside the fence would be too great for any man.

The Ruling Body has been characteristically tight-lipped about Bruce Wayne and the Fight, in keeping with their general policy of managing the Fight outside public scrutiny.

When reporter Vickie Vale asked Bruce Wayne about the Fight during an interview, the billionaire playboy just laughed. "Oh, when I was younger, I did a lot of things that wouldn't be right if I did them now," Wayne said. "Nowadays, I only go out looking for fun at night."