LogFAQs > #947877038

Division 1 Round 1: Link, Luke fon Fabre, Shadow the Hedgehog, and Zidane Tribal

Link - 82662 [60.72%]
Luke - 8333 [6.12%]
Shadow the Hedgehog - 21054 [15.47%]
Zidane - 24085 [17.69%]
Total Votes - 136134

Whenever Link loses a contest, and his loss in 2007 was the stuff of legends, he comes out next time in total eff you mode. Spoilers, if we combine him and his series of games, there are only two spots where he failed to be a champ twice in a row. Once was back during the Summer 2003 - Spring 2004 era. The other was the Fall 2013 - Fall 2015 era. I'll let you decide which of those is more "legitimate", but the point is Link came out this year on some Patriots 2007 noise, only he didn't have the 18-1 choke job looming.

Link was winning this match. He was going to win this contest outside of a miracle. We all knew that. The real story was Shadow the Hedgehog's choke job. Most gurus have "their worst pick ever", and mine is probably picking Shadow to get through three rounds. I wasn't alone in doing it, but given what we know now it just sticks out as particularly egregious. But back in 2008, it was totally defensible. I swear! Remember, back then we only had this to work with:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1322-south-division-round-1-wario-vs-shadow-the-hedgehog
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1345-south-division-round-2-mario-vs-shadow-the-hedgehog
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1727-20xx-division-round-1-tidus-vs-shadow-the-hedgehog
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2869-division-2-round-1-auron-chris-ph-shadow
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2898-division-2-round-2-auron-shadow-ryu-bowser

We also had Zidane making his contest debut, and Final Fantasy 9 didn't even make the field in the 2004 games contest. There was a lot of doubt as to whether he was more popular than Tidus, who went 50-50 with our friend here. So for those who look back and see the silly guru number of 92% picking Shadow, I swear it made perfect sense. I'll also point out that I knew a weird run was coming from this part of the bracket; I just picked the wrong character to do it! :)

When this match started and Zidane started to easily run away with second place, there was a lot of shock and awe setting in, but it was a pleasant shock. Board 8 loves Final Fantasy 9, so seeing a game we stan for pulling a huge upset was awesome. He built up a 2000 vote lead by morning, and once the morning vote hit and nothing happened, all fear of him being a choking dog like Magus drifted away -- and just wait until we get to <i>that</i> debacle later.

Shadow would at least go out fighting. He was down by 3700 when the after school vote hit, and would end up only losing by 3000. Which was great and all, but it would still end up going down as one of the all-time contest choke jobs. Shadow would never recover from this, either. As of this writing, in the years following this all-time choke, Shadow's one and only contest win would end up being against something named Kat and some useless trash from Persona 4 in a 3-way match. Beyond that it's just a lot of nothing, and it all started right here.

And for the love of all things, can we PLEASE stop putting Fails of in every contest? The games are fun and all, but Black Turtle is not wrong on this. The entire series is a waste of contest space outside of Tales of Symphonia getting like 5 minutes of run. Enough is enough.

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