Will we ever get a battle as good as Ash vs Paul?

[Ishida]

Seriously, I think that was one of the best battles in the anime the only other ones that contend are Ash vs Gary(Johto League), Ash vs Drake(Orange Islands), Ash vs Tyson(Hoenn League) do you think we will get another great battle like that in Kalos?

 

[DracoMan]

The way TPTB are these days? Doubtful. They might be able to match the quality of the battle itself if they really apply themselves, but the four seasons of conflict that were resolved in that moment would be exceptionally hard to top.

 

[Darth Darkrai]

I hope we do get a Good Battle sometime with Ash and a Rival.

 

[Psychotic]

The reason that battle was so good was because it had an insane build up. We will be able to tell relatively early if we are in for something like that again.

 

[Master Cyrus]

That battle did not have 99% reused animation so nothing in BW could compete on that ground. But ash vs Cameron came close.

 

[Winterdaze]

Of course we can. The same writers and animators responsible for the battle are still on the production staff. There's no reason they couldn't produce another battle like that if they wanted to.

 

[Araragi-hakase]

I agree with what was already said in that the reason Shinji vs Satoshi was so good was because of the build up. Roughly 4 years of watching these two run in to each other, each with completely different ways to raise their Pokémon, the whole plot with Goukazaru, etc- it all added up to an amazing League battle. I would love for it to happen again, but then general consensus would probably be 'they're just redoing the Shinji plot!' so somehow, I doubt we'll have such an intense and emotional filled battle again for a very long time.

 

[Paulisthebest]

The Ash vs. Paul battle was one of my favorites but not my favorite. I agree the build up was great, it could have been better BUT it was good. What would have made the build up even better would have been if their battles prior to this one were not all in Paul's favor except the Pokeringer match and even then it wasn't a "win" for Ash in terms of battle his newly evolved Emo-bird just managed to knock the ring on the ringer first. Honestly, if the battle was a fight to the end to declare the winner, I'd say Gangster Bird would have one because that thing had an INSANE amount of endurance.

Battles that "rival" this rival battle is Ash vs. Katie (it was the first battle we see Pokemon substitutions being used for type advantage), May vs. Drew (the best Pokemon Grand Festival Battle), Zoey vs. Nando (Best Pokemon Grand Festival in terms of contest techniques/fireworks because it was more about elegance and style rather than knock out the opponent), Ash and Paul's Lake Acuity battle (I'll mention more about it below) and I'll stop right there for now.

Will there ever be a battle this good? Depends as someone already mentioned that in order for a battle to be that good the stakes have to be high. The tension and the meaning of a victory in this battle was built up over 4 sagas in this Sinnoh Season.

Not to complain about BW or rant but after Ash and Trip's first couple of battles as well as their interactions with each other, you could just tell that this "rivalry" was nothing more than a joke especially with Ash's mentality (or lack there of) in the Unova Saga not making him at all as competent in those battles as he was with Paul (and the only times he is really "smart" against Paul aside from the Sinnoh League can be counted on one hand).

Aside from character build up, I believe the writers CAN create a battle that is good enough to be ranked high enough to be compared to this battle. Besides the rivalry, what made this battle so great?

-The battle itself was stretched for nearly 3 whole episodes
-Ash was using things he'd have learned from his journey, seriously you can't beat that!
-Aside from Buizel's Water Gun/Sonic boom we don't see any "weak" moves like Tackle or Ember in this match, we saw Pin Missile but Drapion made it look so bad ass and I bet it had Sniper ability based on all the knockouts it dealt to Ash's team that the move is "acceptable" to me
-Ash substituting his Pokemon instead of making them fight until they win OR faint, there were moments when he was going to recall them but didn't but he did make smart recalls in the match as well so I'll give him credit for that
-A Goku-like monkey went berserk causing a HUGE column of fire to fly out of the stadium into the sky!!
-Ash wasn't the only trainer to come up with innovative tactics and strategy, sure Paul kind of ripped off Counter Shield and "attack the field with ____ attack!!" but it was nice to see someone give Ash a run for his money!
-No extreme use of re-used stock footage for attacks that really made this battle comfortable to watch!

Can the writer's pull off a match like this without "reusing" elements from this battle? Of course! How about Ash OR someone else battling an Elite 4 member or something? I mean the Flint vs. Cynthia match was shown for maybe a minute or so and it was epic! I mean just watching those two showed how far above the rest they are from regular trainers including Ash and Paul.

Seriously, there was no audio to the match unless you could lip-read and even Ash imagined himself in Flint's place using his Infernape realizing that he is no match for Cynthia (yet) and still has to keep training. I will reference/remember that battle as much as I remembered the Ash/Paul match.

Why do I like the lake battle maybe a bit more or close to the league match they had? Well it wasn't because Paul literally wrecked Ash's team (well maybe) but he could have swept the match if he had recalled Weavile instead of letting it fall (though he probably kept it in simply because he KNEW despite Close Combat inflicting a huge amount of damage on Weavile, he'd try to win the match with a big move; Brave Bird making Staraptor take recoil weakening it for another Pokemon to take it out) or calling back Ursaring instead of letting it get raped by Chimchar causing it to evolve.

What made the Sinnoh League match lackluster and what possibly costed Paul the match was having him literally "sacrifice" two of his 6 Pokemon just for the sake of learning Ash's team. I mean after he called out Buizel, Paul had figured out he was using the same 6 as before (save for Monferno and Grotle fully evolving). He could have recalled Aggron when Infernape hit the field or Gastrodon against Buizel, he SAW Buizel use Ice Aqua Jet at the Wallace Cup on TV but just seemed to "hand over" the move to Buizel and letting it win.

Heck if Gastrodon knew Gastro Acid and was used when Ash was down to Infernape, Ash would have been SCREWED. Wow, how's that for downplay? If after that epic display of fire power when Blaze was activated was simply put to an end when a blast of acid nullifies its special ability? Not to mention Pikachu would have been screwed against a Ground/Water as well.

And the fact that he had a Ninjask and Froslass kind of took away from the powerhouses he had at Lake Acuity like Magmortar or Ursaring even his seemingly invulnerable to damage Gangster Bird. Ninjask and Froslass are what I like to call "fragile" Pokemon because they have unique ways of avoiding damage; Ninjask with its amazing speed and Froslass using a Hail/Snow Cloak combo to evade nearly any attack.

Well, those are my thoughts and I REALLY hope we get a good battle like this one in the near future because after Unova...we REALLY need one :/

 

[Chiplet]

Quite frankly, I personally thought that the Ash Vs. Paul battle wasn't the best battle we've seen, and that's coming from a huge Paul fan. I remeber how amazingly excited I was for that battle alone, so even though the battles before it in the Sinnoh League kinda sucked I still didn't care as this battle was the only one I truly cared for. Now don't get me wrong, the battle itself wasn't bad at all, I just probably kept my expectations too high, though the one thing that truly bothered me is Paul's choice of his Pokémon. Aggron, Gastrodon and Ninjask were all... ugh... I don't know, they just never felt like true threats. Froslass wasn't able to take out a single one of Ash's Pokémon, but it still put up a great fight with Pikachu, and since Paul did keep the advantage for the most part of that battle him choosing Froslass for Pikachu was understandable. Still, half of the Pokémon he used were just not as strong as some of Paul's other Pokémon like Ursaring, Torterra, Magmortar, Honchkrow etc., thus it didn't truly feel like he went all out on Ash in their battle.

I'm sure we'll get the chance to see some great 6 on 6 battles in the future, though it's a real shame that we only got one in BW, one that wasn't that particularly good either until the later half of it. However, many of the 1 on 1 and 3 on 3 battles BW offered proved to be really, really good, though naturally won't be enough to cover for a full battle. I just really wish we got the chance to see a full battle between Ash and Virgil, seeing him take on an Eevee team would just be so awesome, especially as Virgil proved himself in his battles against Cameron and Dino that he truly was an excellent trainer. Hopefully the XY series will bring forth some great full battles again.

 

[Ishida]

The Ash vs. Paul battle was one of my favorites but not my favorite. I agree the build up was great, it could have been better BUT it was good. What would have made the build up even better would have been if their battles prior to this one were not all in Paul's favor except the Pokeringer match and even then it wasn't a "win" for Ash in terms of battle his newly evolved Emo-bird just managed to knock the ring on the ringer first. Honestly, if the battle was a fight to the end to declare the winner, I'd say Gangster Bird would have one because that thing had an INSANE amount of endurance.

Battles that "rival" this rival battle is Ash vs. Katie (it was the first battle we see Pokemon substitutions being used for type advantage), May vs. Drew (the best Pokemon Grand Festival Battle), Zoey vs. Nando (Best Pokemon Grand Festival in terms of contest techniques/fireworks because it was more about elegance and style rather than knock out the opponent), Ash and Paul's Lake Acuity battle (I'll mention more about it below) and I'll stop right there for now.

Will there ever be a battle this good? Depends as someone already mentioned that in order for a battle to be that good the stakes have to be high. The tension and the meaning of a victory in this battle was built up over 4 sagas in this Sinnoh Season.

Not to complain about BW or rant but after Ash and Trip's first couple of battles as well as their interactions with each other, you could just tell that this "rivalry" was nothing more than a joke especially with Ash's mentality (or lack there of) in the Unova Saga not making him at all as competent in those battles as he was with Paul (and the only times he is really "smart" against Paul aside from the Sinnoh League can be counted on one hand).

Aside from character build up, I believe the writers CAN create a battle that is good enough to be ranked high enough to be compared to this battle. Besides the rivalry, what made this battle so great?

-The battle itself was stretched for nearly 3 whole episodes
-Ash was using things he'd have learned from his journey, seriously you can't beat that!
-Aside from Buizel's Water Gun/Sonic boom we don't see any "weak" moves like Tackle or Ember in this match, we saw Pin Missile but Drapion made it look so bad ass and I bet it had Sniper ability based on all the knockouts it dealt to Ash's team that the move is "acceptable" to me
-Ash substituting his Pokemon instead of making them fight until they win OR faint, there were moments when he was going to recall them but didn't but he did make smart recalls in the match as well so I'll give him credit for that
-A Goku-like monkey went berserk causing a HUGE column of fire to fly out of the stadium into the sky!!
-Ash wasn't the only trainer to come up with innovative tactics and strategy, sure Paul kind of ripped off Counter Shield and "attack the field with ____ attack!!" but it was nice to see someone give Ash a run for his money!
-No extreme use of re-used stock footage for attacks that really made this battle comfortable to watch!

Can the writer's pull off a match like this without "reusing" elements from this battle? Of course! How about Ash OR someone else battling an Elite 4 member or something? I mean the Flint vs. Cynthia match was shown for maybe a minute or so and it was epic! I mean just watching those two showed how far above the rest they are from regular trainers including Ash and Paul.

Seriously, there was no audio to the match unless you could lip-read and even Ash imagined himself in Flint's place using his Infernape realizing that he is no match for Cynthia (yet) and still has to keep training. I will reference/remember that battle as much as I remembered the Ash/Paul match.

Why do I like the lake battle maybe a bit more or close to the league match they had? Well it wasn't because Paul literally wrecked Ash's team (well maybe) but he could have swept the match if he had recalled Weavile instead of letting it fall (though he probably kept it in simply because he KNEW despite Close Combat inflicting a huge amount of damage on Weavile, he'd try to win the match with a big move; Brave Bird making Staraptor take recoil weakening it for another Pokemon to take it out) or calling back Ursaring instead of letting it get raped by Chimchar causing it to evolve.

What made the Sinnoh League match lackluster and what possibly costed Paul the match was having him literally "sacrifice" two of his 6 Pokemon just for the sake of learning Ash's team. I mean after he called out Buizel, Paul had figured out he was using the same 6 as before (save for Monferno and Grotle fully evolving). He could have recalled Aggron when Infernape hit the field or Gastrodon against Buizel, he SAW Buizel use Ice Aqua Jet at the Wallace Cup on TV but just seemed to "hand over" the move to Buizel and letting it win.

Heck if Gastrodon knew Gastro Acid and was used when Ash was down to Infernape, Ash would have been SCREWED. Wow, how's that for downplay? If after that epic display of fire power when Blaze was activated was simply put to an end when a blast of acid nullifies its special ability? Not to mention Pikachu would have been screwed against a Ground/Water as well.

And the fact that he had a Ninjask and Froslass kind of took away from the powerhouses he had at Lake Acuity like Magmortar or Ursaring even his seemingly invulnerable to damage Gangster Bird. Ninjask and Froslass are what I like to call "fragile" Pokemon because they have unique ways of avoiding damage; Ninjask with its amazing speed and Froslass using a Hail/Snow Cloak combo to evade nearly any attack.

Well, those are my thoughts and I REALLY hope we get a good battle like this one in the near future because after Unova...we REALLY need one :/

I was going to mention the Ash vs Katie battle I forgot about that one.

 

[Almonds]

The build up was what made it look great. If Gary had more screentime than what he got, then it could be debatable whether Ash vs Paul was the best. But still good nonetheless.

Maybe if the writers cared enough to stop bringing in temporary rivals (Cameron, Virgil) and stick to the originally introduced rivals, then they could possibly create a good build up.

 

[97SaturnSL1]

Nope because that would be considered "catering" to the older fanbase in which we all know is a big NO

 

[Pokémon Master Ash]

We can, but I doubt we will for a very long time, if so. Still, the Ash vs. Paul battle in the Sinnoh League is pretty indelible on me as a fan, and I'm not inclined to change my opinion of it being one of, if not the best, battles in the entire series.

While Sinnoh is easily one of my least favorite (if not THE least favorite) saga(s) in the entire anime, what it did well, it did VERY well. Battles are easily the best in this saga, and is the rivalry between Ash and Paul, making this battle's build-up and execution excellent in hindsight. I always enjoy re-watching it and seeing them part ways at the end. It's pretty cool to see Paul reach a mutual understanding with Ash at the end of it all.

 

[Hidden Mew]

It's hard to say. I definitely agree that part of the reason why Ash vs. Paul in the Sinnoh League was so good was all of the build-up it had throughout the series. It's entirely possible that they could provide that kind of buildup for another rival and actually have it lead up to a great battle, but I'm not sure if it would be as good as Ash vs. Paul or if that's even likely to happen anytime soon. It would be nice though.

 

[Darth Darkrai]

Hopefully we do get a good Battle like this I did not mind a 3 Part Ash VS. Paul because that was Probably a GOOD WAY To End the Rivalry with those 2 I think.