(8)Zidane Tribal vs (9)Knuckles the Echidna 2018

Ulti's Analysis
All of us have a few feels-good-man calls in contests where we go against the board in the face of all logic and all of the LOL x stats. I got some matches hilariously wrong this contest, but I had some feels-good matches as well. This was one of them. Never a doubt for me. I know the stats and the gurus and all that stuff favored Zidane, not to mention this match happening eight years ago: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3739-chaos-division-round-1-cecil-harvey-vs-knuckles

Knuckles only got 52% against Cecil at the time and it was considered a massive embarrassment. Which it was. Cecil is so laughably bad in these contests that Cecil Harvey Never Wins has taken off as the new lulz. Did you guys know Cecil is now 0-6 in these things and that Gordon only started out 0-4? It's true. And that guy got 48% on Knuckles, so the logic for picking Zidane here made sense.

But here's the thing. That was eight years ago, and Knuckles has a way of winning these debated matches he always appears in. He was supposed to lose to Yuna in 2003. He beat her. Some people thought Kefka could beat him in 2004. Knuckles won. Everyone already knows about Knuckles beating Magus in 2005. Knuckles was in the opening match in 2007, and people had no idea what would end up happening. He ended up barely getting second place. He only failed to get out of round one in 2008 because Mario can't SFF Zelda. We've already discussed 2010.

Going into this match, Knuckles had appeared in eight contests. He was 7-1 in round 1 coming into this year. He's 0-7 in round 2, but hey! There's also the common sense stuff that one doesn't need the LOL x stats for. Since 2010, a few things happened in Knuckles' favor. One, the Sonic series has all but bent the knee to Nintendo. Sonic was already in Smash Bros Brawl at the time, and since then you might as well call Sonic a Nintendo character. Two, remember how well Mega Man 9 was received by gamers? Sonic had his version, called Sonic Mania. It was very well received, and took the series back to its roots. No doubt this would help Knuckles. Pair that with Square being a thorough abomination, and Zidane and Knuckles are clearly headed in opposite directions. On top of all that, this match was slated to happen on the day of Wario/Monika, and although Monika never came close to winning that match, she was absolutely going to get rallied. I had zero doubts that the kinds of voters who would come over here due to that rally would vote for Knuckles.

So when this match started and Knuckles beat the piss out of Zidane en route to an Ulti-style destruction in which he was never once challenged, I was in no way surprised. I thought the match would be closer than it was, but I was not at all surprised that Knuckles won. If he isn't facing elites or near elites in round one, it's a safe bet he's winning. His one loss was because he was in a fourway with Mario and Zelda in the poll. In every other contest, he wins round 1 and jobs in round 2. Every single time. This year was no different.

Total side note: it's hilarious to me that Tails made it to round 3 before Knuckles could, despite Knuckles having FAR more high profile wins and being a much cooler character. People must really, really hold that damn elevator in Sonic 3 against this guy.