Ash's Worst League Loss?

[FinnishPokéFan92]

It took seven Generations for Ash Ketchum to win a Pokémon League Conference. Which one of the preceding six League Conferences do you think was handled the worst, in terms of how Ash ended up losing it?

 

[KrspaceT]

The Unova League if I had to offer it up because Indigo has the excuse of Ash being an absolute rookie.

 

[Panky..]

Does this even need to be stated? The one in Unova, against Cameron, objectively.

There was no proper in-universe justification for Ash to have lost that, nor one out of universe. At least against Tobias, from an in-universe perspective, Ash wouldn't have been able to defeat a stacked team and the fact that he took down two legendaries only adds to his merit. The one against Cameron was a poor parody and at times felt like the viewer was being mocked (especially if the viewer was a long time fan).

 

[Emmy]

The first one, against Ritchie.

 

[Kurolegacy]

Unova hands down. The fact that they had him lose to Cameron, the person who they basically built up as a joke, who thought the Unova League was held in Johto, who almost missed registration, who brought 5 Pokémon to a full battle and got an evolution DEM; no league loss tops that. To this day, I question what they were thinking.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

Kanto, because of the sheer amount of dumbfuckery around the loss.
Unova is a close second.

 

[Schemer99]

Christ, seeing this list made me realize that Ash only lost cleanly in Johto and Hoenn.

 

[Daren]

I'm genuinely curious if any other than Unova and Kanto will get any votes.

 

[JinksChow]

Unova.

Back context, they released a Download Tournament for B2W2 prior to the league (https://m.bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/You_Challenge_the_Unova_League_Too!) which is clearly meant to mirror Ash's progression in the Unova League, since it featured Trip, Stephan, that guy, and Virgil.

So they had set up Virgil as the dream crusher, only for the writers to turn about face and make Ash lose in just about the most humiliating way possible. Not to mention after that, they had the trainer who defeated Ash lose to Virgil without even managing to force out his entire team (and also had three Pokemon remaining).

For the previous two leagues, the writers at least had the decency to let Ash lose to the final winner of the league. But for the Unova League, the writers not only deprived Ash of that, but they also had the trainer who defeated Ash to lose even more decidedly than Ash did in the very next round.

 

[Daren]

I am surprised Kalos hasn't any votes yet, given the backlack that took place even on these forums as well only a couple of years ago.

I think it's because Kalos' problems were mostly meta in nature--the outcome at least makes sense in-universe, since Alain was a powerhouse.
In Kanto Ash was abducted and has his team weakened before the match, so it should have been postponed, plus the referee's dumb Sleep Powder ruling.
In Unova they portrayed Cameron as so stupid that Ash losing to him feels like an obvious backslide of his trainer skills from previous series'--he spent several years getting worse.

Edit: Ah, my earlier question is answered; we have a Sinnoh vote.

Unova.

Back context, they released a Download Tournament for B2W2 prior to the league (https://m.bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/You_Challenge_the_Unova_League_Too!) which is clearly meant to mirror Ash's progression in the Unova League, since it featured Trip, Stephan, that guy, and Virgil.

So they had set up Virgil as the dream crusher, only for the writers to turn about face and make Ash lose in just about the most humiliating way possible. Not to mention after that, they had the trainer who defeated Ash lose to Virgil without even managing to force out his entire team (and also had three Pokemon remaining).

For the previous two leagues, the writers at least had the decency to let Ash lose to the final winner of the league. But for the Unova League, the writers not only deprived Ash of that, but they also had the trainer who defeated Ash to lose even more decidedly than Ash did in the very next round.

I am really curious why they went with Cameron as the dream crusher/league kicker instead of Virgil.

 

[The Amazing Popplio]

I am surprised Kalos hasn't any votes yet, given the backlack that took place even on these forums as well only a couple of years ago.

I think it's because Kalos wasn't actually a teriblle loss(just a little bad with the final match). The reason it had such a huge backlash was because of the promotional material that pointed that Ash was definetely gonna win. It's the same with nowdays like when it pointed to Ash getting Sobble and it eventualy went to Goh. Everyone was upset then but now they don't mind that much.

As for which one I believe is the worst, Unova takes the credit. All the reasons have been stated above and in a lot of other forums so I'm not gonna tell them. Kanto takes 2nd place but is a little excused because Ash was at his worst back then and he didn't have any fully energised Pokemon that obeyed him thanks to Team Rocket, while Richie had at least 3 (probably all 6) so there was no way he was winning and everyone knew it since the match started.

 

[Eclipsical]

Definitely Unova.

Despite Ash’s Pokémon being weakened by Team Rocket in Kanto, he ultimately lost because of Charizard’s disobedience. If he had obtained it prior, he most likely would’ve beaten Ritchie and most of the competition with just Charizard (unless it got cheated by dumb rules like Sleep Powder disqualifying the opponent). We don’t really know the competition after that, so it’s hard to say how far he really would’ve gotten after that. Ash was a rookie and wasn’t really prepared for a League yet, with many of his wins being based on him getting lucky, such as Krabby evolving and Muk being the perfect counter to Bellsprout.

We all know what happened in Unova.

 

[Black&White]

Either Kanto or Unova for obvious reasons. It was incredibly foolish for Ash to use a Charizard that didn't obey him

 

[Handy Man]

I honestly burst out laughing when I saw that Unova had a landslide agreement, but it is well deserved. Everyone has discussed to death how horrible the Cameron battle has been over the years. One thing I will say though; even though it is stupid that the battle was a 6v5, in practice, it felt more like a 6v3. This is because Pikachu OHKO’d Swanna, and Pignite OHKO’d Ferrothorn. From what I remember, I’m pretty sure neither Swanna nor Ferrothorn actually did anything at all in their battle. This means that the only Pokémon that put in work on Cameron’s side were Hydregion, Samurott, and of course, Lucario. Lucario did the most work by far, due to the evolution and singlehandly knocking out Ash’s last three Pokémon (Unfezant, Snivy, Pikachu). Overall, the battle between Ash and Cameron just has horrendous momentum. Two of Cameron’s Pokémon were just dead weight, and his “third” Pokémon knocked out three Pokémon in a row. I honestly wonder if Ash gets war flashbacks when he looks at his own Lucario in Journeys.

 

[Alola]

It's a toss-up between Unova and Kalos for me.

Unova because of the blatant idiocy that was Ash losing to Cameron while Kalos Ash absolutely deserved to win that League, but the writers gave Alain plot armor; given how Ash ended up winning the Alolan League, it makes his Kalos loss all the more jarring and upsetting.

 

[Hidden Mew]

Unsurprisingly, I also think that the Unova League loss was the worst one. While I still think that Ash's skills during BW weren't as bad as I thought they were when I first watched the series, losing to someone like Cameron really doesn't make him look any good. Cameron was such an idiot that he thought the Unova League would be in Johto, used a remote control as a Pokedex, didn't realize he needed six Pokemon for a full battle and thought he only needed seven badges to get into the Unova League. He was just annoyingly stupid, so Ash losing to him just for that alone made it frustrating. Not to mention the battle itself was pretty weak. All things considered, Ash getting to the Top 16 in the Unova League felt believable given his inconsistent BW team members, but how they went about it with Cameron made it worse. It didn't help that people thought that he was going to battle Virgil only for Cameron to lose to him instead.

Kalos would be a close second for me. I wasn't set on Ash winning like a lot of fans at the time. I was so certain that the match would be interrupted by Team Flare and then dealt with later. But I can understand why there was so much backlash at the time. There was so much buildup for this match. Ash and Greninja finally mastered their new power, Alain's team was mostly kept in the dark until this battle and they spent so much time hyping Alain as this super powerful trainer. The battle itself wasn't bad and I suppose in-universe it makes sense as to why Alain won when he could defeat Elite 4 level trainers and stand up to Legendary Pokemon. It just felt unsatisfying when even after mastering Ash-Greninja they were no match for the broken Mega Charizard X. Plus, I don't think it really did anything other than keeping up the status quo. I liked how Ash reacted to the loss since that was a nice followup from his losing streak when he was trying to get his last badge, but it didn't really do much for Alain or even factor into his departure at the end of XY.

As poorly handled as the Indigo League was, including the battle with Ritchie being tacked on at the end of an episode despite all of that hype, I was pretty much fine with Ash losing there. If he had been able to jump right into the battle without dealing with Team Rocket, maybe he could have defeated Ritchie, but I have a hard time picturing Ash lasting through his first full battle or getting any further in the Indigo League. Most of his Pokemon weren't that strong and a good portion of his victories during this stretch of the original series were based on luck. Ash's defeat was primarily due to Charizard not listening to him, which was ultimately his own fault. Even Professor Oak told him afterwards that maybe he could have gone further if he did more training and trained his Charizard more properly instead of begging for it to listen to him every time he was in a pinch.

 

[Daren]

I do wonder if Johto and Hoenn will remain unblemished in the poll. I don't think either had any major controversies other than the status quo element and Hoenn being rushed (I had a few thematic quibbles with Hoenn but I've never seen anyone else comment on them so it's a Me thing; personally I'd have switched it around so he beat Tyon and lost to Katie instead).

while Kalos Ash absolutely deserved to win that League, but the writers gave Alain plot armor; given how Ash ended up winning the Alolan League, it makes his Kalos loss all the more jarring and upsetting.

All the weird meta things about Kalos is probably why there are so many theories about what happened behind the scenes. The most interesting one I recall was someone suggesting he was going to win, but it was changed last minute so he'd win a League close to Japan hosting the Olympics.

As poorly handled as the Indigo League was, including the battle with Ritchie being tacked on at the end of an episode despite all of that hype, I was pretty much fine with Ash losing there. If he had been able to jump right into the battle without dealing with Team Rocket, maybe he could have defeated Ritchie, but I have a hard time picturing Ash lasting through his first full battle or getting any further in the Indigo League. Most of his Pokemon weren't that strong and a good portion of his victories during this stretch of the original series were based on luck. Ash's defeat was primarily due to Charizard not listening to him, which was ultimately his own fault. Even Professor Oak told him afterwards that maybe he could have gone further if he did more training and trained his Charizard more properly instead of begging for it to listen to him every time he was in a pinch.

My big complaint about Kanto was the execution; the idea of him losing beause of his failures regarding Charizard was great, but the Sleep Powder ruling and especially TR's intervention made it look like an undeserved win on Ritchie's part. It didn't help that while most later League kickers were older and more experienced Ritchie just came across as Ash with all his character flaws scrubbed away, and even had a lot of the same Pokémon.

 

[Kurolegacy]

Christ, seeing this list made me realize that Ash only lost cleanly in Johto and Hoenn.

We haven’t had such good final battles since. Even the league he won’s final battle wasn’t as good (not counting Kukui).

 

[RetroPokeFan]

A desperate struggle between both Kanto and Unova but Unova wins out.

With Kanto, it was really annoying seeing Team Rocket basically hog half the episode to stall Ash for time and the battle ended up not really being much of a battle at all as a result but with Unova it's far far worse... because not only did Ash lose to a person who has a brain the size of a tiny peanut, it also showed that he had basically regressed as a trainer and that's far worse than spending an entire episode just trying to make it back to the league in time.

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

The Unova League, hands down. While Kanto is a close second for Ash being effectively sabotaged, it at least has the excuse that a) it was the first League, so writers were still figuring out the feel of the series, b) Ash is not entirely blameless for his loss, since if he had prepared his party better he would not have needed to resort to using a disobedient Charizard, c) Even then, falling back on Charizard could have been a saving move rather than a desperate last resort if Ash had actually trained him, d) About half of Ash's victories in the Kanto saga -including several battles of the League itself- had him win through sheer dumb luck rather than skill so in a sense it's only logical for him to lose due to that luck finally running out, and lastly e) it paved the way for some neat character development for Ash.

Unova on the other hand is funnily enough something of an antithesis to Kanto's League, in that the idiot making all the blunders is handed the win anyway because Ash HAS to lose this... even though there was a perfectly good candidate in Virgil to knock him out of the tournament. Not helping matters is the fact that throughout the whole match the only Pokemon of Ash's who rack up wins are Pikachu and Pignite, both of which had already been quite overused throughout the saga compared to most of their teammates and really didn't need to be given more glory, AND the fact that this was the only full battle we saw in its entirety... only for Cameron to not even bring a full team because this kid is so dumb its honestly a wonder that he still remembers how to breathe.

I actually have brainstormed a few ways to make Ash's Unova loss better. The most obvious one being have him defeat Cameron and then lose to Virgil's Eeveelution team in the semifinals, but if for whatever reason I was forced to make Cameron defeat Ash, here's how I would have done it (hidden because long text):

Spoiler

First, Cameron's character gets a bit of a rewrite in that he's still incredibly goofy and clueless at everything, but when it comes to Pokemon battles, he's actually something of a genius. This obviously means that he doesn't forget to bring a full team of six and we get a proper match, and would also better explain and justify him having a perfectly obedient Hydreigon under his command.

Next, I would still keep Hydreigon beating Ash's Boldore and Oshawott in a row, since we do need to establish them as a threat. The only real change here is that I would have Ash's Oshawott know Ice Beam for this fight in place of Tackle, serving the twofold purpose of justifying Ash sending out Oshawott against a freaking pseudo-legendary AND making Hydreigon look even more tough for withstanding an opponent with a super-effective move. This of course would come with the caveat that both Boldore and Oshawott get one victory each in a previous match that the audience gets to see. After Boldore and Oshawott are beaten, Ash sends out Pignite and he still beats Hydreigon the same way he did in canon, with a super-effective Brick Break.

After Hydreigon is knocked out, Cameron sends out Swanna instead of Ferrothorn to battle Pignite, and wins easily due to the dual type advantage. Ash sends out Pikachu who beats Swanna easily in turn, and now Ferrothorn comes out to battle Pikachu. Pikachu and Ferrothorn trade blows for a bit and Ash quickly learns that Quick Attack and Iron Tail barely even phase Ferrothorn, who also has a counter for Electric attacks by blocking them with their own Thunderbolt as a sort of callback to Tyson's Meowth doing the same at the Hoenn League. This causes Ash to withdraw Pikachu and send out Unfezant in his place, as she's the only one of his remaining Pokemon that has a chance at piercing through Ferrothorn's defenses. Unfezant does take serious damage from Ferrothorn's Thunderbolt, but manages to finally emerge victorious thanks to landing several well-placed critical Aerial Aces and Air Cutters courtesy of Super Luck.

Cameron sends out Samurott next, and she and Unfezant trade blows, but ultimately the fully evolved Water Starter proves far too powerful and Unfezant goes down. Now Ash sends in Pikachu for an encore performance, and this battle is far longer than the match against Swanna, with Pikachu taking some serious damage from Samurott's attacks. The electric mouse eventually wins out by using the same Iron Tail+Electro Ball combo he used to defeat Trip's Serperior. Seeing how exhausted Pikachu is, Ash once again recalls him so he can rest up a bit.

Ash sends out Snivy next while Cameron goes with his Watchog. This battle is over fairly quickly with Snivy winning without even needing to resort to Attract. Now Cameron finally sends out his final Pokemon Riolu and from here on out the battle plays out like in canon: Snivy has the upper hand against Riolu at first but then Riolu evolves and turns the tables to defeat Snivy. Pikachu is then sent out to battle the newly evolved Lucario but winds up losing due to having racked up more damage across several previous battles when compared to Lucario.

And there you have it. How I would have written the match between Ash and Cameron, solving what I thought were the biggest annoyances of it: Cameron is an actually competent (albeit goofy when it comes to non-Pokemon Battling related things) battler rather than just a barely-functional dunce who lady luck overwhelmingly favors, the battle has both opponents use a full team, and more of Ash's Pokemon get to go out in a blaze of glory instead of giving all of it to the overused Pikachu and Pignite. Maybe I'll write a hypothetical Ash vs Virgil match later...