LogFAQs > #980078061

it's Ash's Rowlet vs Hau's Decidueye, already yeah rolling eyes at the match-up to begin with but fine whatever Pokemon always does this stuff. Honestly though man Rowlet hasn't been a serious Pokemon this entire series, it's whole thing is just that it sleeps in his bag (more recently, becoming bffs with Meltan who also sleeps in Ash's bag)

but whatever, so the fight goes on and Rowlet is really just getting its ass beat the whole time and I really don't think does anything while Decidueye gets hits in on Rowlet. At a certain point Kiawe starts thinking Ash might be planning something, bringing up Brave Bird and they talk about its pros & cons in the stands

Eventually, it happens. Ash calls out Brave Bird, and in this moment Hau smirks - he saw this coming. He prepared for this, and he counters with his own powerful Flying move in Sky Attack. The two moves collide together and both Pokemon are knocked out, the battle is decided by who gets up first. Decidueye does it! It's a stunner for Ash to lose this early (quarter finals, having only surived the Battle Royale then beaten Faba for a 1v1) but honestly it's an absolutely deserved win for Hau & Decidueye. I was honestly impressed that the show stomped Ash out here and gave Hau a win that truthfully just made sense.

oh but wait a minute then what's the problem?

well after the judge has made its decision, the jumbotron declares the victory, and everyone's kind of in shock including Ash who's pretty devastated about this loss - HOLD IT calls out Kahuna Hala! As he points out............ Rowlet can still fight! He's actually just sleeping! Rowlet turns over and yeah it's got the snooze bubble, it's only knocked-out asleep from the collision of their devastating attacks! So the fight is reset, Decidueye shackles Rowlet to the ground with another Spirit Shackle (which doesn't damage in the anime for some reason, only pins a Pokemon), to be followed up with another Sky Attack. Rowlet gets out of the way in time using Feather Dance which is apparently an evasive attack that gets it out of the shackle so it can counter with another Brave Bird for the win

btw reminder that Ash lost the Indigo League because Charizard went to sleep loafing around because he didn't take Ritchie's Sparky seriously as an opponent