Results[]
Ulti's Analysis[]
| Division | 2 |
|---|---|
| Match # | 8 |
| Match Date | Monday, September 10th, 2007 |
| Oracle Expectations |
Bowser - 36.22% Ryu - 32.33% Mewtwo - 20.09% Toad - 20.10% |
| GameFAQs Expectations |
Ryu first place (2pts) - 70.26% Ryu second place (1pt) - 16.75% Bowser second place (2pts) - 54.53% Bowser first place (1pt) - 18.02% |
| Advancing Prediction |
Bowser - 72.55% (26,643) Ryu - 87.01% (31,954) |
It's easy to look at this in retrospect with current information and go "Oh, Ryu vs three Nintendo characters all killing each other, Ryu easily wins!", and you'd be right. Unfortunately, people didn't really think that way in 2007. Everyone looked at Bowser just absolutely embarrassing Ryu in 2005 and assumed this would be a cakewalk. Just look at the Oracle predictions for this and you'll see what Board 8 was thinking.
But every contest has some matches where the casuals murder the gurus, and this was one such match. Because while Board 8 was picking Bowser > Ryu without thinking twice, the public was picking Ryu > Bowser without thinking twice. As you can see, the public ended up beating the sharps, and quite handily at that. Bowser having to deal with Mewtwo, a strong Nintendo character in his own right, and then Toad thrown in for the hell of it was way too much to handle. Bowser still advanced, but Ryu got first place almost by default.
Normally the public's random win over the sharps is meaningless, because we always beat them in the end anyway. But with this match, it was a bit different. It would take until next round to see why, but needless to say, Bowser wasn't exactly apt to turn this result around once all the Nintendo disappeared.
Stats and Analysis[]
- Bowser underperformed by -9.70%, the #4 most disappointing performance of 2007
this was, in my mind, the first real upset. there were a couple matches prior to this that broke a lot of brackets, but this was the match, a match featuring two upper-tier characters in Ryu and Bowser, that had real implications for future rounds. the majority of the board had Bowser to round 4 with confidence - Bowser crushed Ryu in 2005, Auron was going to be in the same match as Cloud, and Bowser was the natural choice there.
but oh man, this thing did not go according to the majority's thinking. most expected a Bowser win; some expected a Ryu win since there were two other Nintendo characters in the poll. Bowser did indeed start out with the lead, and held it for a couple minutes. but after that, Ryu went to town on Bowser. by 00:15, he was losing updates by 100 votes. Ryu has one hell of an early/night vote, and Bowser felt the wrath of Ryu here. an hour in, this match was as good as over.
but it didn't stop there. Ryu's one of the strongest night characters we have. his day vote is a joke, and while Bowser isn't as strong as some other Nintendo characters in the daytime, it was thought he could at least stop the bleeding. instead, it was Mewtwo that absolutely rocked the daytime, going 50-50 with Bowser all the way to the end of the poll. in the end, Ryu won by 15,000 votes, and Bowser could only manage a 5,000 vote lead over Mewtwo. not the most inspiring of efforts from the guy most had pegged as round 4 material!
Match Trends[]
