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Link defeated Cloud yet again, but Cloud recovered from a poor opening to make the final much more respectable than expected. The writeup's larger complaint is that Link's dominance had become so repetitive that he no longer belonged in ordinary brackets.

The rematch of the original character-contest final produced much the same hierarchy, with Link suppressing Mario and winning comfortably. The writeup notes that even widespread anti-Link sentiment did little to change the matchup.

SFF: The writeup invokes Link's 'King of SFF' reputation to explain why Mario again performed much worse against Link than people hoped.

Link crushed Sonic far more severely than a normal Noble Nine matchup suggested, restoring his aura of invincibility. The writeup views fanbase suppression as an important part of why the gap became so extreme.

SFF: The writeup endorses SFF as a plausible explanation for Link's unusually severe beating of Sonic, noting that Link looked invincible mainly against overlapping characters such as Luigi and Sonic.

Link finally produced the dominant performance the writeup had been waiting for and overwhelmed Luigi. The result largely erased doubts created by Link's earlier, more ordinary-looking matches.

Link advanced comfortably, but the writeup regarded the result as another slightly weak showing by his historical standards. Mega Man X's performance kept alive the possibility that Link had lost a little of his old invincibility.

Link beat Alucard comfortably but looked weaker than the writeup expected for a second straight match. The commentary identifies growing anti-Link voting as a new factor even though it was not yet threatening his championship path.

Link won easily, but the writeup considered the performance mildly disappointing by his usual blowout standards and attributed some of that to anti-Link sentiment. The match also marked the return of a true 1v1 contest after four years.