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While I would consider Excadrill one of her few consistently strong Pokemon, beating trainers in the Club Battle tournaments isn't really that impressive. I never found those tournaments to be particularly noteworthy or winning them to be a major accomplishment. Bringing up how other female leads has useless Pokemon feels like a moot point. It doesn't change the fact that Axew was virtually useless during BW or make its writing any better. Not to mention Torchic actually evolved on-screen, had a fairly consistent progression of strength and Lillie even wasn't a battler in the first place. The only fair comparison out of that list was Togepi.Excadrill was always strong, she beat multiple other characters in the Don battle tournaments and some outside. Axew was a weak baby but every female lead has some sort of pokemon that's borderline useless at first (Togepi, Torchic, Vulpix, etc). If you even compare Iris to OS-era Misty, Iris definitely seemed a lot stronger than Misty did in Kanto or most of Johto. Even with fewer Pokemon.
Honestly, I wouldn't say that Iris was that much better than Misty. I'd probably put them around the same level mainly because they both felt average at best despite how they'd try to hype themselves up. Misty had a similar problem where she'd talk a big game about her skills as a trainer and how much she love Water Pokemon, but she couldn't really back it up. The main reasons why Misty isn't as insufferable as Iris is because the original series didn't hype her up as this special gifted Water Pokemon Master in training and her personality wasn't nearly as insufferable. It's really hard for me to see Iris as that strong when pretty much all of her accomplishments were handed to her with little to no effort on her part. Iris' skills never felt particularly consistent compared to someone like Misty.
I don't think that the fact that Trip was a rookie would really mean anything when he made quick work of Ash too, but that's another issue entirely. I'm not saying that Iris defeating Alder is unbelievable because of how older series portrayed them, although that probably doesn't help matters either. I'm saying it's unbelievable because it's still too much of a huge leap to make off-screen. Even if we factor in how Champion aren't shown to be unbeatable anymore, becoming a regional Champion is still a big deal and still wouldn't be an easy accomplishment. She'd have to beat eight Unova Gym Leaders, win the Unova League, defeat the Unova Elite 4 and defeat Alder. That is a lot for the audience to hand wave away as off screen development, especially when her team was not particularly good, Iris herself never really lived up to the hype BW created for her and she had no real interest in battling more than Dragon type Gym Leaders. There is just not enough on-screen evidence to make this development work. When you have to rely so heavily on assumptions to justify development, it just falls flat and makes it feel even more forced.We only see champions as unbeatable because that's how the older seasons portrayed them. Now they're not anymore. Alder made short work of Trip, but c'mon, it's Trip a literal rookie. While I would have liked some sort of flashback to Alder or something like that, it's not too out of the question to me. As an aside, it also makes Iris' development feel complete. BW just left her unfinished with an untrained Dragonite, she lost to Claire and Drayden, and then BW ended with the pointless Declora Island arc where she got no further development. Now everything people wanted to see back in BW, Axew finally evolve and Iris prove her worth finally happened (along with Ash finally beating her in a proper battle). While most of it was off-screen, it's better than where we left her off at the end of BW where it felt like the writers just gave up on her.
Considering how I feel about Iris in general, it's hard for me to see it as making her development feel complete. It feels way more like just forcing her to match her video game counterpart. I can see the appeal if you like Iris and I'm sure I'd be happier about this if I was a fan of her character or found her storyline more engaging. Since I don't, it all just feels too forced to me. Axew evolving similarly feels kind of hollow when it suddenly learning to enjoy battling doesn't really work. Admittedly, that would be easier to believe than Iris becoming the Unova Champion, but I think that the poor writing in BW just didn't help to make Iris finally getting a Haxorus feel worthwhile or meaningful. It feels less like Iris proving her worth and more like the anime continuing to overhype her as the special gifted Dragon Master in training. Saying that it's better than when the writers gave up on her isn't really a huge bar to reach either.