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Mega Man routed Ganondorf in the losers bracket and made the pre-match expectations look far too conservative. The writeup spends much of its analysis rejecting claims that Ganondorf's sprite picture caused the poor result.

Link opened the Legends Bracket by crushing Ganondorf, though the margin was less extreme than their famous older matchup. The writeup treats the result as heavily distorted by Zelda-series overlap rather than a clean measure of Ganondorf's strength.

SFF: The writeup treats Link's domination of Ganondorf as a clear SFF result, noting that Ganondorf is much stronger than the raw margin suggests and that Zelda resists Link's SFF better.

Ganondorf beat Vivi after an early struggle, but Vivi stayed close enough to reinforce his reputation as an unusually durable Final Fantasy character. The writeup believes Nintendo and Zelda momentum were just enough to decide the matchup.

Ganondorf comfortably eliminated the contest's top overall seed Dante in a match that barely moved. The writeup treats the loss as proof Dante was badly overseeded rather than evidence of a close divisional race.

Ganondorf beat Chun-Li but looked far weaker than expected for a character many had viewed as a likely division winner. The writeup treats the poor performance as a major warning, while explicitly dismissing earlier complaints about his sprite picture.

Ganondorf crushed Neku far more severely than expected and immediately looked like the division favorite. The writeup treats the result as an early sign that Zelda, Switch and Smash hype would dominate the contest.

Vivi produced one of the contest's defining upsets by holding off repeated Mario comeback attempts and finally eliminating him. Nintendo vote splitting and a modest outside push helped create the opening, but the writeup still celebrates Vivi's composure against Mario's legendary clutch.

LFF · Rally: The writeup says Ganondorf leeched Nintendo support from Mario and that 4chan also rallied Vivi during the close fight.

Ganondorf won easily, while Guybrush finally earned a meaningful contest success by taking second in the Expert Challenge ordering over Max Payne. The removed fraudulent votes tainted the match without changing that placement.

Cheat: The writeup says fraudulent votes for Guybrush were removed during the match, while also stating that Guybrush still would have beaten Max Payne without them.

Years of Ganondorf-over-Sonic upset hype collapsed when Sonic controlled the match from the start. The writeup treats the result as a major correction to the idea that four-way contests had revealed Sonic to be much weaker.

The writeup gives Ganondorf's easy win over Ken only brief attention before turning into a long aside about why the author dislikes Street Fighter IV.

Ganondorf defeated Mewtwo in an uneventful all-Nintendo matchup and landed close to expectations. The writeup nevertheless saw the showing as too ordinary to support growing hopes of an upset over Sonic.

Samus and Vincent advanced as expected, but Ganondorf collapsed so badly that Gordon Freeman escaped last place. The writeup treats the fanbase interaction as the defining feature of an otherwise predictable divisional final.

SFF · LFF: The writeup describes Ganondorf as heavily suppressed by Samus through their shared Nintendo support. It also says Ganondorf's presence drained Samus enough to tighten her comparison with outside contender Vincent.

Samus and Ganondorf advanced through what the writeup openly calls a rest-break match. Frog's old upset magic never appeared, and the result remained straightforward throughout.

Ganondorf won comfortably while Frog held off KOS-MOS without the expected daytime collapse. The delayed match picture caused controversy, but once it appeared the writeup says it did little to change the Frog-KOS-MOS race.

Pic: The writeup says the eventual match picture hurt Ganondorf while giving KOS-MOS no meaningful advantage over Frog, even though KOS-MOS supporters had expected her image to help.

Master Chief took first, while Luigi defeated Ganondorf in the fight for the other advancing spot. The writeup repeatedly points to Ganondorf's unfavorable first-appearance sprite as the decisive handicap.

Pic: The writeup says Ganondorf's ugly pig sprite hurt him badly against Luigi and likely reversed a matchup Ganondorf had previously won.

Mudkip turned the opening hours into a genuine scare by leading the Nintendo favorites, but Ganondorf recovered overnight and Luigi's morning vote erased Mudkip's remaining advantage. The writeup treats the match as proof that joke characters could no longer be dismissed.

Ganondorf won first easily, while Vergil and Thrall fought a much closer battle for the second advancing spot. A WoW rally helped Thrall make a serious overnight push, but Vergil pulled away decisively once daytime voting arrived.

Rally: The writeup describes a World of Warcraft forum thread rallying votes for Thrall and says the push helped him nearly catch Vergil before the daytime vote ended the threat.

Vincent won a heavily debated match after Ganondorf's early advantage faded with the opening Nintendo surge. The upset exposed problems in the old statistics and immediately triggered a large Vincent-over-Sonic bandwagon.

Samus advanced as expected, but the writeup considers her showing against Ganondorf disappointing next to Mario's destruction of Zero. Her weak SFF performance is presented as a serious warning before the coming Mario matchup.

SFF: The writeup says Samus barely managed to SFF Ganondorf, with only enough suppression to offset Ganondorf's recent Zelda-series boost.

Ganondorf beat Auron more comfortably than the pre-match debate suggested, turning the first match of the much-hyped Gauntlet into an anticlimax. The writeup still credits Auron with legitimate strength while sending Ganondorf onward to Samus.

Ganondorf beat Yuna as expected while the writeup debated whether the result helped or hurt his standing against Auron. It also explicitly points to suspicious voting on Yuna's side.

Cheat: The writeup says TRE identified numerous examples of blatant cheating coming from Yuna's side of the poll.

Ganondorf gave Sephiroth some resistance early, but Sephiroth pulled away and won the villains championship as expected. The writeup is more interested in why Sephiroth looked less dominant against Bowser and Ganondorf than against his earlier opponents.

Diablo's surprising run ended abruptly against Ganondorf, who controlled the semifinal from the start. The writeup sees the match mainly as confirmation that the expected Sephiroth-Ganondorf final was inevitable.

The writeup spends most of its time reviewing years of disappointing Sonic-series contest performances, using Robotnik's lopsided loss to Ganondorf as the latest example.

Pic: The writeup says Ganondorf dominated despite an ugly Wind Waker picture and suggests Robotnik would have looked even worse against a stronger SSBM-style Ganondorf image.

Ganondorf crushed Ansem as expected, though the writeup thought the favorite should have looked even stronger after Ansem's struggle with CATS. Much of the discussion blames Ganondorf's pig-form picture for the comparatively disappointing showing.

Pic: The writeup says Ganondorf's pig-like Ganon picture was widely blamed for an underperformance against Ansem, hurting the favorite despite the easy win.

Ganondorf obliterated Giygas in a matchup the writeup considered barely worth holding. The result simply reinforced Ganondorf's status as a pre-contest lock for the final while placing Giygas among the weakest entrants.

Link annihilated Ganondorf so thoroughly that the writeup treats the result as both a historic SFF extreme and a championship statement. Ganondorf's standalone strength effectively vanished against the flagship character of his own series.

SFF: The writeup calls Link's destruction of fellow Zelda character Ganondorf the largest SFF beating yet seen, arguing that Ganondorf's normal strength was almost completely suppressed by Link.

Ganondorf beat Alucard in a respectable matchup between two characters the writeup considered badly underseeded. Much of the discussion centers on the bracket apparently being arranged to produce Link versus Ganondorf in the next round.

Magus survived a dramatic Ganondorf comeback after his early lead nearly vanished during the morning vote. The razor-thin win punctured the enormous Magus-versus-Link hype even as it produced one of the contest's most memorable close matches.

Ganondorf survived a surprisingly strong Tidus comeback after Board 8 had largely treated the matchup as a lock. The match became especially important for popularizing dedicated update topics and exposing the gap between hardcore board expectations and the broader bracket field.