(4)Lightning vs (15)Donkey Kong vs (24)Falco Lombardi 2013

[Ulti's Analysis
I know there was one more match to have before ending round 1, but this might as well have been the last match of round 1 given how funny it was. Lightning was expected to win this match fairly easily due to the Nintendo overlap between Donkey Kong and Falco, but more importantly, this is freaking Donkey Kong we're talking about. DK doesn't win debated matches; he chokes them away.

Not only that, but DK is notorious for having close matches when he was expected to win with ease. Just for fun, here's every debated or close match DK has ever been in:

2002 - Beats Aya Brea by 1300 after trailing early, our first ever match with F5 spam. 2003 - Loses to Vercetti by 1000 after hours of stalling out. 2004 - DK (the game) almost loses a 3300 vote lead to Duck Hunt. 2004 - Blown out by Vivi in a match he was expected to win. 2005 - Loses a 2000 vote lead to Master Chief. 2008 - Loses to Tidus and Weighted Companion Cube. 2009 - DK almost loses to Punch-Out, DKC1 beats Doom by 600 with LTTP in the poll.

Other matches happened, but those are the notable ones.

So for DK to come out and end this match in ten seconds was completely nuts. To say that people hate Lightning is an understatement; I think Lightning is the entire symbol of everything that people have despised about Square since FFX or so, and with good reason. Lightning is not a likeable character, and calling her a Cloud clone is just an insult to Cloud. Cloud is an introvert and doesn't openly hate his party, while Lightning just goes out of her way to tell everyone to f*** off every 2 seconds.

I actually like Final Fantasy 13 a lot, but there is no defending this idiot. Square tried making a strong female lead, but succeeded with almost every female in the game except Lightning. Fang is a strong character. Vanille is a strong character. Even Serah in her limited screen time is a strong character. Lightning just acts like a c*** for absolutely no reason, and somehow Square thought it was a good idea to channel the inner LeBron James and make not one, not two, but THREE games about her?

Square is unbelievably clueless, and Lightning flat-out deserved this loss for multiple reasons. DK also deserved this win, for the years and years of contest misery. Just the perfect storm of deserves to win and deserves to lose, all in one match.