Twenty-four men entered, only one man would leave — unscathed, that is.

Just a single “true champion” would stand tall in his rubber-soled shoes and have that little extra giddy-up when his feet left the cemented parking lot of Ottumwa’s GameStop last Monday night, early Tuesday morning last week.

We didn’t have Good Charlotte’s licks to entertain us like fans did at MaddenPalooza in Pasadena, but our Madden 2009 release party was just as good.

The prized jewel was any true footballer or gamer’s dream, or so it should be — a chance to strap-on the shiny gold belt and declare himself (or herself) the king of all that is sacred and holy (this is Madden speak).

And of course dine on the finest meats and cheeses in the world.

I wasn’t one of them.

Cheap pop, your standard chip fare and a whole lot of smack-talk being bantered about made it a true royal rumble indeed. When the clock struck midnight, Madden’s game would go on sale.

In the meantime, we would play Madden 2008 in a 24-team tournament on the big screen outside the entrance to GameStop, just northeast of the River City’s Wal-Mart.

The tension was palpable as stares sliced through the air. I witnessed countless hard looks and was worried something might go down before the first ball was even kicked from its tee.

No mayhem popped off, but there was plenty of talk — or smack, as we call it — being dished out. That’s par for the course in a “dance” like this. Smack can be a valuable weapon for a sports gamer — that 12th-man on the field or the secret weapon pulled out late in the fourth quarter to freeze your opponent into submission.

These games mean something and no one wants to go home with the dreaded Madden “stare,” a combination of disgust, shame, humiliation, hatred and anger — all wrapped up in a nice little ball that sits in the pit of your stomach. Pepto-Bismol does not help out.

But you also have to remember when smack is being thrown, step out of the way if you can’t back it up, because when “you’re in the jungle, you’re gonnna’ die” (again Madden-speak or maybe random flashbacks of Guns N’ Roses still playing in my head from 1988).

So I tried to grab a vine and sway my way into the stratosphere and into the upper echelon of this bracket.

Now before I could go “Mad Max” on somebody with my video-gaming skills, I had to get a brief rundown from two former Ottumwa Bulldog football players that were in attendance. They went by the names of “Spice” and “Kimbo,” and unlike myself, they had actual competitive-gaming skills. These names used are purely for aesthetic purposes and intimidation, or so I was told.

But I needed to learn the buttons and halfway get an idea of the basic plays that work.