East Division: Round 3 - Match 51 – (1) PT Red/PT Blue vs. (2) Ryu/Ken
Moltar’s Analysis
Red/Blue
Round 1 - 76.92% vs. Raynor/Kerrigan
Round 1 - 77.96% vs. Luigi/Waluigi
wow
Ryu/Ken
Round 1 - 81.63% vs. Ratchet/Nefarious
Round 2 - 64.98% vs. Fox/Wolf
This is far less impressive.
No cliché “It’s finally here, the match you’ve all been waiting for!” here. I’m going to make this fairly short and to the point (right after this brief summary of events so far). Fighters were the favorites to win pre-contest because Ryu and Ken have looked stronger than Red. Add on to that the Ryu/Ken rivalry should have been one of the most respected and strongest rivalries in the bracket and most people were feeling good. Then the Trainers went out and tripled their opponents twice, and now we’ve got a legit match. Both of these rivalries are very legit in the eyes of the voters, so it’ll come down to which one is stronger.
SFF or not, 78% against Luigi/Waluigi is impressive, while 65% on Fox/Wolf isn’t. Trainers have Pokemon in their pic, so if you believe Charizard helps them, then that’s more evidence in their corner. Pokemon is usually victorious in debated matches because many people on the board underrate it, so tradition also favors them.
Ryu/Ken have the fact that Ryu and maybe Ken would beat Red and Blue 1v1. They also have today’s match, which has X/Zero under 53% against the MK ninjas. I believe that Ryu/Ken > Sub/Scorp, so basically this match comes down to a guess. Is Red/Blue stronger than X/Zero?
I’ll go with yes, even knowing that MMX beat Red 60-40 in 2010. As much as this format does for Ryu/Ken, it looks like it’s doing even more for Red/Blue. I trust nostalgic Pokemon fans here more, so I think the trainers are legit strong enough in this format to win.
And win easily.
Because I can.
Moltar’s Bracket: Ryu/Ken
Moltar’s Prediction: Red/Blue - 55%
Lopen’s Analysis
This is once again a match where the main reason to pick one way is superstition, and the main reason to go to the other way is... well, pretty much everything else. If a match is remotely in the air and Pokemon's involved, you pick Pokemon. It's just got that clutchiness.
Unfortunately, “superstition” is 1-0 in this contest, so it'd be foolish to rule it out here. The way you have to feel to feel fighters have a chance is if you don't think this match should be close. And it very well might not be. The fighters have every factor in the book going for them over the trainers. They're OLDer, their rivalry is longer running, both Ken and Ryu are stronger than Red or Blue. There's not one thing to me that says this match should be close. Fighters looked better in round 1, doing a higher percent against a rivalry that is probably the stronger of the two. In round 2, trainers SFFed Waluigi into the dirt but... it's Waluigi-- I could see Fox vs Wolf doing about the same, and the Fighters looked very good against Fox and Wolf. I also kinda think Cecil's 2010 numbers are a bit inflated and Luigi/Waluigi are weaker than they appear as a result of that.
That and there's also the MK ninjas doing very well today that speaks well for Ken and Ryu. Could it be that GameFAQs actually respects the classic fighting game rivalries?
So the question you ask yourself is... is this a b8ism where some loud members of b8 are making a match where there isn't one, ala Red vs MMX? Or is it a match that actually could be close where the Pokemon will pull it out? I'm leaning towards the former, personally. If you think it's going to be close, bet on Pokemon.