(16)Zelda vs (15)Donkey Kong vs (7)Charizard 2013

Ulti's Analysis
This match was supposed to be an easy win for Charizard en route to easily taking advantage of Mega Man + Zero to win the division, but then something funny happened. Zelda and Donkey Kong decided to join in on the fun and create a massive Nintendo f***fest, which jammed everything up beyond belief.

What ended up happening is once Charizard won the early vote (very early), Zelda started taking off. DK was never a threat to win this poll, but just him being there completely messed things up for Charizard, and would have easily lost without all the rallying. Zelda got the lead up to 160 in an hour, which is Pokemon's best time, and it was everything Charizard could do to keep her from going nuts overnight. He stalled here and there, but Zelda got the lead near 300 overnight.

Which leads us full circle. Most of you won't remember this, but that whole joke about WAIT UNTIL THE KIDDIES WAKE UP started back in 2002, when characters like Tails and Kirby faced early upsets. The joke has lived on year after year, but this might be the best example of the kiddies truly waking up and bailing out a Pokemon from a sure loss. Charizard won the morning vote and got the lead all the way down to 40, but Zelda managed to recover and get the lead back to 140 in surprising time.

Then the rallies took over. Zelda had a 100 vote lead at around 10:30 in the morning, and Charizard managed to erase all of it in 15 minutes. But Zelda characters are very hard to rally against, so The Zard was never able to take off and go nuts. He only built up a lead of 80, which Zelda them promptly slapped aside.

The match came down to the very last update, which is all anyone could ever want. Charizard had a 19 vote lead with 5 minutes left, and in the last frantic push to win the poll, the last update went Zelda 118, Charizard 114. This meant Charizard winning the match by 15, but if ever there was a Pyrrhic Victory in this contest, this was it. A character favored to win a division and challenge for a contest title doesn't almost lose to freaking Zelda-with-Donkey-Kong-in-the-poll. He just doesn't. I won't go as far as calling Charizard a flop in this contest, because he wasn't, but this was just a bad performance. Without the kiddies waking up and without those late rallies, he easily loses. Even with those, he almost lost. If this match was 24 hours, he probably loses.

Hell, give Zelda any picture other than s*** from Wind Waker, and he probably loses. This was just bad, and it really opened the door for what would end up happening to him in round 3. Charizard is still really strong, but he was definitely overrated from 2010's stats due to HGSS coming out the day of the match with Bowser. His true strength is more what we saw in this match, really.