Knuckles the Echidna's Contest History

Who is Knuckles?
Talk about Shadow the Hedgehog all you want, but the best badass in the Sonic series is Knuckles. He may not have been in the first two Sonic titles, but he stormed onto the scene in the third installment, Sonic and Knuckles. Knuckles was a step ahead of Sonic all throughout the game, and Sonic was in a constant state of playing catchup. Sonic would eventually previal, but Knuckles was one of the best badasses in gaming because of Sonic and Knuckles. Until that game, there was simply no outwitting Sonic. Ever. But Knuckles managed to pull it off, and thanks to Sonic 3 & Knuckles, Sonic fans could play through multiple Sonic games using their new favorite badass.

Granted, Knuckles hasn't made the best of transitions into the 3D Sonic titles, but then again, neither have most of the Sonic characters. And even though Knuckles may have some horrid voice acting and characterization in the 3D Sonic games, he still isn't as bad as Shadow is.

"I can't betray my friends." -Knuckles

Contest History
Win-Loss Record: 5-5

Summer 2002 Contest: East Division - 7 Seed

Eastern Round 1 --- Defeated (10) Akira Yuki, 49964 [80.56%] - 12057 [19.44%] Eastern Quarterfinal --- Lost to (2) Solid Snake, 26748 [39.29%] - 41335 [60.71%] Extrapolated Strength --- 15th Place [27.68%]

Summer 2003 Contest: West Division - 8 Seed

Western Round 1 --- Defeated (9) Yuna, 56363 [55.32%] - 45531 [44.68%] Western Quarterfinal --- Lost to (1) Solid Snake, 35646 [36.87%] - 61038 [63.13%] Extrapolated Strength --- 24th Place [25.62%]

Summer 2004 Contest: 20XX Division - 10 Seed

20XX Round 1 --- Defeated (7) Kefka, 47578 [57.46%] - 35220 [42.54%] 20XX Quarterfinal --- Lost to (2) Solid Snake, 32946 [40.46%] - 48481 [59.54%] Extrapolated Strength --- 28th Place [24.94%]

Knuckles is quite an interesting case in these contests. In every single contest, Knuckles has won his first round match before losing to Solid Snake in the second round. There is no way to verify Knuckles' strength, simply because he gets stuck fighting Solid Snake every year. Wherever Snake goes, Knuckles goes with him. The argument could be made that Knuckles has grown slighly weaker with each passing contest, but there is no way to know whether or not this is Knuckles weakening independently of Solid Snake. There is simply no way to verify his strength until he loses to someone else, but thanks to CJayC's cute little ideas, we may very well see Knuckles stuck fighting Snake every single year. An interesting fact about Knuckles: of all the characters who have won a match in all three contests, he is the weakest.

Summer 2005 Contest: Devil Division - 6 Seed

Devil Round 1 --- Defeated (3) Magus, 51909 [50.86%] - 50153 [49.14%] Devil Semifinal --- Lost to (2) Squall, 45780 [46.20%] - 53310 [53.80%] Extrapolated Strength --- 18th Place [29.77%]

KNLITFR - Knuckles Never Loses In The First Round

Ignore the fact that he would lose to Squall in the second round of this contest, because no one really talks about that anyway. What people care about is the fact that Knuckles was expected to be MagusFodder, yet not only proved how overrated Magus was, but outright beat Magus in the biggest upset we've seen in one of these things since Link/Cloud 2003. And not only was Magus vastly overrated, but Knuckles being stuck behind Solid Snake for three years running caused his true strength to be hidden the entire time as well.

No one expected Knuckles to win that match, outside of a few joke posts here and there. No BOP entry, no Oracle pick and no Guru had Knuckles winning, which made the upset all the more awesome. It's impossible to know what Knuckles has in store for us in the future, but his mark on these contests is set in stone for life due to one first round match.

Summer 2007 Contest: Division 1 - First Group

Division 1 Round 1 --- 2nd place, 43939 [27.84%] - Yoshi, 55989 [35.48%] - Rikku, 42830 [27.14%] - Vaan, 15064 [9.54%] Division 1 Round 2 --- 3rd place, 25442 [20.27%] - Mega Man, 47353 [37.73%] - Yoshi, 35438 [28.24%] - KOS-MOS, 17261 [13.75%]

After getting unfairly shafted last year due to the female bracket, people were anxious to see how Knuckles would follow up his memorable 2005 performance. When the bracket was released, it looked good for him to get past the second round for the first time. Well, Knux was almost involved in an upset, but he would have been on the wrong side of it. When the match began, he found himself trailing...Rikku? Are you kiddin' me? Knuckles did end up taking second place, but only by an unimpressive 1100 votes. Oh yeah, and he finished far behind Yoshi in both matches. Sonic Team bombing would become a recurring theme in the contest.