Results[]
Ulti's Analysis[]
| Division | East Division |
|---|---|
| Match # | 37 |
| Match Date | Tuesday, August 6th, 2002 |
| Vote difference | 11,474 |
| GameFAQs Prediction |
Lara - 74.13% (12,427 brackets) |
The biggest thing to remember about this match is that at the time, we had no clue that Ryo Hazuki or Lara Croft were hiding the fact that they were contest jokes. None. The days of Ryo Hazuki and Lara Croft getting blasted to hell by Yoshi and Samus were two years away, and at the time of this match, all we had were two respectable characters performing at somewhat expected levels. We knew no better. It's very easy to say that Lara is a joke for allowing Hazuki to break 40% on her (especially as a 1 seed), but we didn't know at the time what either character's real nature was.
What he had was a ho-hum match that saw the expected character win. That's it. The only real concern here was Lara Croft, a 1 seed, allowing relatively unknown characters such as Chop Chop Master Onion and Ryo Hazuki to do so well against her. She was not performing up to her seeding at all, and with characters such as Crono, Dante, or Solid Snake lurking right around the corner, showing such a large sign of weakness could mean a mound of bad news in a hurry. It's possible that Hazuki truly was strong enough to do this well, but it was highly unlikely. It's hard to imagine Hazuki breaking 40% on true 1 seed material such as Link, Cloud, Sephiroth, or even Mega Man. The fact that he did this against Croft ensured that her odds of surviving such a stacked division were quite slim. Another clear warning sign of a possible Croft weakness was the fact that only 75% of people picked her to win two matches. This means that over 4000 people had either Chop Chop Master Onion, Ryo Hazuki, or Guybrush Threepwood(three complete scrubs) taking down the 1-seeded Lara Croft. Something was definitely amiss.
On a final note, pay close attention to Hazuki's score in this match. It's easily the last amount of respect you may ever be able to give him.