Hey now, this is an old thread! No idea where to post this, so I'm posting it here.
I got to thinking the other day... thanks to Phanpy's evolution not too long ago, it has swelled up to an enormous size! Donny's one big Pokemon. And I recalled that Swellow was able to lift up Tetsuya's own into the air and hurl the beast. That little stunt prompted me to wonder if Tetsuya's Donphan was slightly smaller than usual, since, after all, it is a large Pokemon. So I traveled to the episode pictures and...
Holy crap! I see now it wasn't smaller. In fact, it looked normal-sized, and next to Swellow, it was frickkin' huge! And me being the ever-buzzing Buzzhead, it ticked me off a bit!
I understand Swellow's Deus Ex powers and I've rationalized most of its other battles. Back when the episode aired, this little stunt didn't aggrivate me as much, but today it seems like Donphan was cheated a little to give Swellow some gravy points. Maybe it is because Ash has a Donphan of his own now that I give 2 cents about what happened, but I couldn't tell you and now I plain don't like it.
The entire ordeal seems like an insignificant thing to complain about (especially compared to other events that went down in the episode), but let V have his rant.