Results[]
Ulti's Analysis[]
| Division | East Division |
|---|---|
| Match # | 38 |
| Match Date | Thursday, August 7th, 2003 |
| Vote difference | 12,489 |
| Oracle Expectations |
Bowser - 49.74% 22 for - 26 against |
| GameFAQs Prediction |
Bowser - 40.65% (16,689 brackets) |
At the time that this match took place, Bowser defeating Yoshi was a fairly large shock. The reason for this is simple.
http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/index.html?poll=634
Because of that poll, everyone assumed that Yoshi would walk all over his fourpack in the event of Ness not pulling off any upsets. And using that poll wasn't exactly wrong, because people didn't know at the time that those polls weren't very reliable. This caused Yoshi to not only be the board favorite against Bowser, but a lot of people stretched out that poll into saying that Yoshi stood a chance to beat Cloud.
Mario beat Cloud, and Yoshi finished ahead of Mario in that poll....
This all caused Yoshi to be the clear favorite in this match, and for the first few seconds of the poll he was in the lead. His lead was very slim however, and within a few minutes Bowser was able to catch up to Yoshi before laying an SFF beatdown on him throughout the rest of the match. It wasn't a Mario/DK type of a beating, but it was enough to ensure that Yoshi had no chance of winning the poll after only enjoying his lead for a few seconds.
The only explanation that can really be made here is that Bowser is more popular than Yoshi in the Nintendo landscape, though it was almost impossible to know that GameFAQs felt this way before the match started. Both Bowser and Yoshi faced new characters in the first round, and the aforementioned poll showed that Yoshi was allegedly the #1 Nintendo character on the site. One could have looked at the total votes and percentages from the first round and said that Bowser looked more impressive, but it was impossible to really see this coming ahead of time.
Since this poll, several things have happened with both characters. Bowser, like Ganon, has massively increased his strength and is almost at Noble Nine status, while Yoshi is a solid middle character who can always win one or two matches in contests. People have also learned not to take those mass character polls all that seriously, though it would take awhile before Favorite Game polls and FAQ hits were discounted as viable sources as well.