(1)Resident Evil 4 vs (16)Jet Grind Radio 2010

Ulti's Analysis
There are many examples of this contest of voters being smart and taking the words "Game of the Decade" seriously. Other than the voters preventing Brawl from winning, there was no better example of this than Resident Evil 4.

It was RE4, not a Final Fantasy or Zelda or Smash title, who had the highest prediction percentage and battle pickers in round 1. Though FFX was the most nominated game, RE4 might have actually been the favorite to win the entire contest. Those numbers aren't available, but RE4 getting more people picking it to win than any other game wouldn't surprise me.

So when RE4 came out and just destroyed Jet Grind Radio, the "Can RE4 beat FFX?" wasn't typical early match overreactions -- especially with the percentages staying consistent all match. RE4 was legit as hell, likely boosting from the contest's name, and an upset over FFX wasn't out of the question given how bad FFX looked a few matches ago. RE4 would end up losing that match, but this doesn't take away how good a contest the game had.