1997 vs 1996

Ulti's Analysis
1997 continued its dominance in this contest with an absolute demolishing of 1996, in a match that was barely worth watching. 1996 actually won the board vote before bleeding all day, and frankly it was lucky to prevent '97 from breaking 70% in this match. I know 1996 is a weak year comparatively, but anything from the 1990s only scoring 31% in a match this late in a contest was a real eye-opener. This wasn't quite on par with 1998 getting 73% on 1992, but it was close.

This more or less cemented our final being a 1997/1998 duel, which is why the coming semifinal match between 2001 and 1997 was such a massive surprise. There was almost nothing in this contest suggesting that match would even be close, let alone a 2001 win. '97 looked almost as dominant as '98 in all of its matches, and during this match there were even people complaining about yet another FF7 vs Ocarina of Time final and that Allen wasn't fooling anyone.

I know this was a boring contest, but 69% in the final eight is no joke. It gets harder and harder to get blowouts the later you get in a contest, so this was a very good performance by 1997. Too bad it didn't matter at all.