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Mario and Bowser repeated a matchup the writeup felt had effectively happened only a year earlier. The rout is remembered mainly as another example of the bracket producing bad rematches.

Sonic and Robotnik demolished the pre-match upset case built around Kirby and Meta Knight. The writeup treats the result as evidence that iconic rivalry strength mattered more than people expected.

Mega Man X and Zero overwhelmed Bartz and Gilgamesh in a nearly content-free match. The writeup mainly uses the result to emphasize how weak Guybrush had looked in the prior round.

Sub-Zero and Scorpion beat Donkey Kong and King K. Rool comfortably despite surprisingly low prediction confidence. The writeup treats the result as another example of Donkey Kong being chronically overrated.

Red and Blue crushed Luigi and Waluigi, exposing how much an unpopular partner could drag down a stronger character in the rivalry format. The writeup openly calls its own Luigi upset pick a major mistake.

Ryu and Ken handled Fox and Wolf without difficulty and confirmed that they too were receiving a substantial rivalry boost. The trainers nevertheless remained the clearer favorite for the next round.

Samus and Ridley advanced, but Ridley held Samus down badly enough that the writeup calls the win a Pyrrhic victory. The performance made a deep Samus run look increasingly unrealistic.

Big Boss and The Boss beat Chris and Wesker more comfortably than the writeup expected. The result is presented as evidence that the Metal Gear pairing benefited more from the rivalry format than anticipated.

Link and Ganondorf obliterated Amaterasu and Orochi and effectively ended remaining hopes for a normal upset of Link. The match reignited the long-running argument that Link should be retired from future contests.

Mega Man and Wily beat Zidane and Kuja in another second-round match the writeup considered largely pointless. The picture receives more praise than the actual result.

Phoenix and Edgeworth's huge opening board vote briefly made the matchup look interesting, but Alucard and Dracula took over and pulled away decisively. The vampires' performance confirmed their status as the division's stronger pairing.

Frog and Magus held off Chell and GLaDOS in one of the contest's rare genuinely close-looking matches. The writeup celebrates it mainly because almost every other rivalry matchup had been so uncompetitive.

Cloud and Sephiroth dispatched Kratos and Zeus in a match the writeup barely considered worth analyzing. The only notable wrinkle was Cloud finally enjoying a relatively good board vote against an even more anti-voted opponent.

Snake and Liquid beat Pac-Man and Blinky in an unusually low-interest poll, but the writeup considers Snake's performance another sign that Metal Gear had declined. The result effectively killed any upset hope against Cloud and Sephiroth.

Squall and Seifer advanced without much drama, but the margin was weaker than the writeup expected from a top-seeded pairing. Because Squall's bracket path looked predetermined, the underperformance received little weight.

Dante and Vergil erased Sora and Riku's overnight lead, only for Kingdom Hearts' daytime strength to restore control and secure the win. The writeup regards it as the first truly good match of the contest even though the comeback failed.