(1)Dante vs (16)Cuphead 2018

Ulti's Analysis
I know this contest started two months ago, but doesn't it feel like a year? It legitimately feels like this match was an entire lifetime ago, especially given how utterly bizarre it was for Dante to be the #1 overall seed in the first place. We are reaching a point of singularity in our culture where everything feels like it's happening at the same time and at no time at all, and it's really jarring. Or I'm just getting old and time is going too fast for me at this point. Anyway, here is the list of every #1 overall seed we've ever had, in order, even including the weird ones limited to format types. For fourways (puke) or threeways (kinky) I just listed the winner of the first match:

-Mario -Link -Super Mario Bros 3 -Link -Bowser -Mario -The Legend of Zelda -Samus -Yoshi -Zack Fair -Tetris -Link -Fallout 3 -Mario and Bowser -Link -Chrono Trigger -1995 -Dante

The ones that stand out as being thoroughly ridiculous are Zack, Fallout 3, 1995, and Dante. Fallout 3 happened because of the format (Game of the Decade), and 1995 happened because Allen had the bright idea to make a contest called Best Year in Gaming, an idea so dumb that Allen has yet to add it to the list of past contests as of this writing. Seriously: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/features/contest

This leaves Zack and Dante, both of which earned their position from new game hype. I know people reading this after 2010 or so won't believe this, but Final Fantasy 7 used to be liked on GameFAQs. It's true! So back in 2008, Zack got a bunch of nominations and was thrown into the first match. That bracket was largely randomized, but hey. Not taking anything away from the guy.

But Dante, somehow, got the #1 overall seed in this contest based off of this video even with Board 8 deciding everything this year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2lWUQHUapM

I like Dante. I honestly do. He's cheesy and over the top in a cool factor way. And DMC5 looks fantastic, don't get me wrong, but that hype video isn't exactly an FF7 remake or grown men openly weeping tears of joy and passing out over Twilight Princess or Super Smash Bros Ultimate. It was just a solid hype vid. That's all. DMC is also a series that's produced two of the all-time worst games (2 and DmC, a game so bad they didn't even call it "5"), two average games (1 and 4), and one A+ game. 3. This is also Capcom we're talking about, which isn't exactly the most scrupulous of companies.

The point is here I think some dickery was afoot. And as one could expect, voters weren't buying it. Dante did decent here, but this was nothing earth shattering and nothing to make anyone think he had a prayer of escaping a division with Vivi and Ganondorf in it. It's not often one can call a 71% performance subpar, but we're holding Dante to the standard of a #1 overall seed. Being in this position is just different; Link has been here five times and this is the spot Chrono Trigger scored 239.44% from. You have to give me better against a character in Cuphead that 19 people care about.

And yeah yeah, I know. "Cuphead's game is good and he's underseeded." These indie characters are all flashes in the pan, they all have no sustainable popularity, and their fanbases all think they're bigger than they actually are. That includes the all-time examples of Braid and Undertale, and I say this as someone who drove the Undertale bandwagon. Cuphead matters about as much as Frisk, Tim, Meat Boy, or the vehicles from Gradius and Blaster Master.

He doesn't. Moving on.

Oh and Nero is cooler than Dante, even if he does look like a vanilla midget Cody Rhodes wannabe. I love all these ex-WWE fans pretending the NWA title suddenly matters just because Cody Rhodes held it for an hour after winning it on a show he himself produced and booked. Cody and Dustin are both trash, and so was much of All In.

Pro wrestling will never, ever be cool again. Ever. Deal with it. That ship has long sailed.