Thank you, Orlando!

The challengers each entered the squared circle, battle-hardened and ready for the fight of their lives, knowing only one could emerge with their arm raised and the claim to the title of the People's Champi- ... er, the Best of Orlando! The nominees gave it their all, and the people of Orlando called it right down the middle. Revel in all the pride and pageantry on the following pages, where we list this year's champions in the battle royales of Local Color, Food + Drink, Music + Nightlife, Arts + Culture, Goods + Services and Sports + Recreation.

We'd like to bestow championship belts on the following:

Writers: Ida V. Eskamani, Maisie Haney, Holly V. Kapherr, Faiyaz Kara, Bao Le-Huu, Thaddeus McCollum, Matthew Moyer and Jessica Bryce Young ate, drank, danced, looked and learned their way through the city for the past 12 months to cull our Writers' Picks. McCollum, Moyer and Young also took on the herculean task of tallying our voters' voices in the Readers Poll.

Photos and design: Adam McCabe and his team at Edgefactory went above and beyond for our cover and section openers: photographing the wrestlers, providing a green-screen studio, and doing the fantastic, falls-count-anywhere photo illustration work. Melissa McHenry rounded out this all-star tag team by designing and laying out the whole print issue.

The wrestlers: Teddy Stigma, Serpentico, Lexi Gomez, Jay Sky, Richard King and Destiny (Kallee Topper) gave their all to look their fiercest and fightiest in these pages.

Digital: ... and Dave Plotkin, last man standing, uploaded all of it to the web. 1-2-3! Ring the bell!

The Best of Orlando® 2019

Meet the wrestlers who body slammed their way through this issue.