2001 vs 1997

Ulti's Analysis
It's going to be long forgotten if it isn't already, but this upset was one of the most inexplicable upsets we've ever had. There was no indication this was coming. Zero. 1997's results in this contest, in order: 77.25%, 70.98%, 69.15%, 48.26%, and two of those blowouts were against other years in the 90s. Most of us were just hoping 2001 made a game of it, and some openly asked for picture sabotage in 2001's favor, but 2001 actually winning? Hell naw.

Then the match started, and 2001 won the board vote. Alright, sure, Melee-related things always win the board votes. But then after a two hour struggle where 2001 maintained a 100 vote lead, it started climbing ever so slowly until it hit 200 overnight. From here it was all about who would take the day vote, and.... 2001 took the morning vote and day vote both. Somehow. The final vote margin may have been 620 votes, but the match wasn't really that close. If the day trend lasted for the entire match, 2001 could have won this thing by 1000 or more, and 1997 never made any real threat to actually win this match. Given the buildup to this thing making it look like 1997 had a decent chance of winning the contest outright, this one blew me away. I was happy about it, don't get me wrong, but it still blew me away.

We don't have many examples of dominant, potential contest winning entrants getting upset out of no where with no rally like this. We may not have any, come to think of it. Cloud losing to Mario in 2002 wasn't really an upset. Neither was Crono losing to Mario in 2003 or Ocarina of Time losing to FF7 in 2004.

Who do we even put in the slot of "potential contest winner losing out of no where before the final"? Mario in 2003? Maybe Melee or FFX in the Game of the Decade contest? I'm drawing a blank here. This might be the most unexpected non-rally upset we've ever had, and no one will care because no one cared about this contest. If anyone sees this on the wiki in the future, by all means make a note and add it to the end of this in italics. Thanks.

This match actually gave us hope in 2001 pulling a second miracle upset in a row and actually winning this contest -- you know, giving us some excitement this year. Then the next match happened, and.... yeah.