It was almost inevitable that it came down to this in all the pre-game hype and hoopla - Peyton Manning v Richard Sherman, and the Great Duck Debate of 2014.
<>You don't want to be around either one and they can make a fair old mess of anything they touch. But going head-to-head? Ask me something simpler, like the square root of infinity.
Turn the debate around and you have an equally vexing situation. Young Russell Wilson has been the modern reincarnation of Joe Cool for much of the campaign. He hasn't put up startling numbers, just a 13-3 record and the ability to pull out the key play when it matters most.
Righteous stuff
The original 'Joe Cool,' Joe Montana, won his first Super Bowl when he was 25 and went on to add three more, thriving in the rarefied atmosphere of the play-offs, and many pundits suspect Wilson is made of the same righteous stuff. The fact the Seattle ace has put up a 101.2 quarterback rating this year - something that took Montana six seasons to achieve - only heightens the sense of anticipation.
And yet - the Seahawks offence has averaged barely 20 points in their past six outings, including both play-off wins with a combined 46 points. In that spell, Wilson had three interceptions and four fumbles (only one lost) and, at times, looked more like Joe 90 (the nine-year-old version) than Joe Cool.
Wilson, though, has the safety valve of the Beast of the West in Marshawn Lynch, and you have to think the Broncos' front seven will take a serious hammering from the Skittles-loving running back who - while he may not like talking to the media - does plenty of talking on the field in the shape of battering-ram runs that often register on the Richter Scale (you see, back to earthquakes again).
Denver have been nobody's pushovers in recent weeks, though, limiting their last four opponents to just 72 yards per game, with Terrance Knighton coming to the fore as a gigantic, run-stuffing influence. Indeed, during one of his rare statements of any great illumination, Lynch admitted the one thing he feared in his bid to bulldoze a way to the Lombardi silverware was - old Pot Roast himself, the 335lb (and a bit) Knighton.
Again, you are left feeling the scales are evenly balanced and ready to move only at the most subtle and insistent of urgings. Both teams are fully capable of providing that key impetus, on offence and defence, but discerning who will actually be the ones to make it is a completely forehead-wrinkling past-time.
Yet game-time is now approaching and it is time to get off the fence; to make a reasoned judgment; to predict a winner.
And, in a full week's worth of back-and-forth, in leaning first one way and then the other, I keep coming back to two things.
Weapons
Firstly, Manning has SO many weapons on offence and is such a past-master at reading even the most obscure and challenging puzzles, you feel he simply HAS to find a way to solve the Seahawks. For all their hard-hitting prowess, the Legion of Boom have not faced such an inscrutable and ultra-tactical foe, and it is hard to see Denver not putting up their play-off standard 25 points.
And, if they do, it will be up to a second-year signal-caller to respond in kind and find a way into the Broncos' end zone at least three times, something they could not manage against either New Orleans or San Francisco.
Wilson also walked past me during one of Seattle's media sessions this week. At all of 5ft 9in, I certainly don't tower over anyone, especially in footballing circles. And yet Wilson - listed at a generous 5ft 11 - seemed to be pretty much on the same ordinary, mortal level as myself. Is this really a Super Bowl-winning quarterback, I couldn't help asking myself.
Put him side by side with the 6ft 5in Manning and it literally looks like a boy in a man's world. Montana himself was a healthy 6ft 2in, far more advantageous in the lofty gridiron world. But then he couldn't run like Wilson.
Rumble
You see, there I go again. As fast as I put up an argument for one side, I knock it down again. It really is that kind of game.
The one thing I can say with a great deal of certainty, though, is that, after covering 16 Super Bowls, this is most definitely one I would pay to watch, even at this year's average of $1,600 a ticket.
Ali and Frazier's Rumble in the Jungle was one of the most compelling pieces of sporting action of all time. XLVIII has the potential to be just as good. Just don't expect a knockout.
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