His handle comes from Threshhold which he used on
MUDs before he got into
doom (and quake). He guarded his
reputation well, because he knew it's value. He only lost one "published" duel, to a clanmate Reptile (both were clanmates back in DR days), and this virtually unbeaten rep is what holds his name so high.
However, he was really rarely #1, as even during his quake
career he was cautious about picking his fights as a
professional gamer (most notably, he skipped
TGI - True Gamers Invitational, the biggest convention of global quake1 players, even though he was invited).
This is not to say, however, that he doesn't deserve his title. He did a *lot* in the quake community by just being #1, and quit quake for the love of the game (however ironic) and started gamers.com with some of his friends, a site devoted to games like, and including, quake. Oh yeah, even in the early
quakeworld days, he kicked
MikeJ's butt (an accomplished canadian player who was top #1 in the quakeworld charts at the time, back when quakeworld HAD centralized charts, as none exist today due to abuse thereof).
You can find a thresh
faq on
gamers.com