After eight days and 16 first round battles, the WCIA steel cage is littered with the bones of those companies not crappy enough to continue on in the tournament. But the thrill of victory is fleeting for the remaining combatants, all of whom must square off again if they hope of crowning themselves the Worst Company In America!

Round One brought us some out-and-out slaughters like Bank of America’s demolishing of Citibank and BP’s decimation of Toyota.

Meanwhile, reigning Golden Poo-holder Comcast’s thrashing of Charter would probably not have been so gory if the cable colossus hadn’t been caught trying to pull some WWE-style shenanigans by instructing its employees to vote multiple times at work and at home. Comcast’s ruse backfired. When the news broke of the chicanery, it only had around 65% of the vote; by the time the final bell rung, it was over 83%.

But it wasn’t all blowouts in Round One. Health insurance giant WellPoint scored just a few extra punches to send UnitedHealth to the hospital (where it will be turned away for pre-existing incompetence). Meanwhile, Delta had to pack on some extra fees and lose a few additional pets in order to fight off the combined efforts of United and Continental.

The only result that WCIA prognosticators would call an upset was Time Warner Cable’s slim victory over Facebook. The cable/internet provide with only around 20 million subscribers managed to beat out a privacy-invading site with around a half billion users. Well done! Maybe it was the fancy new logo?

But all that’s in the rearview mirror now. For the remaining competitors, there is only the next fight. And in the end, there can be only one!

ELITE 8 BOUTS:
*Bank of America vs. Walmart
*Ticketmaster vs. Chase
*BP vs. WellPoint
*Comcast vs. AT&T (noon ET, April 11)

SWEET 16 MATCH-UPS!
*Bank of America vs. DirecTV
*Delta vs. Walmart
*Ticketmaster vs. Sony
*Capital One vs. JP Morgan Chase
*BP vs. Time Warner Cable
*WellPoint vs. Johnson & Johnson
*Comcast vs. Best Buy
*AT&T vs. Apple

ROUND ONE MATCH-UPS:
*Bank Of America Vs. Citi
*Dish Network Vs. DirecTV
*United/Continental Vs. Delta
*Walmart Vs. Gamestop
*Tickemaster Vs. PayPal
*Sony Vs. Dell
*Capital One Vs. American Express
*Wells Fargo Vs. Chase
*Toyota Vs. BP
*Time Warner Cable Vs. Facebook
*United Health Vs. Wellpoint
*CVS Vs. Johnson & Johnson
*Comcast Vs. Charter
*RadioShack Vs. Best Buy
*AT&T Vs. Verizon
*Apple Vs. Microsoft

This is a post in our Worst Company In America 2011 series. The companies competing for this honor were chosen by you, the readers. Keep track of all the goings on HERE.
See and print the entire WCIA 2011 bracket, here.

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