I came for a Dragonite vs Dragonite batte, I kinda stayed for the dragonite vs dragonite battle. I'm not really sure how to feel about this episode tbh. A few points.
I kinda wish they saved Iris for later. They hyped up Iris as champion only for her to lose the very episode she's introduced as such.
The battle itself was kinda uninteresting. The Dragonite VS Dragonite battle was kind of a wash with Iris' Dragonite kinda winning before the battle even began through sheer intimidation alone. *That dragonite definitely has Intimidate for its ability. We all know Iris has the Hax >.>*
Then Dracovish came out and dombo'd Iris' dragonite in 2 hits. Though to be fair, it was for a semi good reason. Dragonite not being able to hear iris' commands cause it got trapped in Dracovish's mouth then getting ice fanged while in said mouth is probably not a fun time. Even for a dragonite known to shake off ice attacks like its nothing.
Then Haxorus *<.<* comes out and beats dracovish in 2 moves. I suppose I don't really have a problem with that beyond why Dracovish knows water gun. That's such a weird move for it to have.
Then Dragonite comes back out, weakened, takes an outrage to the face, gets a random af psychic pep talk from Iris, and learns Draco Meteor to win the battle after an admittingly cool hurricane moment. At this point I think we can all admit, Dragonite is a bruiser in a way that most of Ash's Pokemon cant compare. It can take a stupid amount of hits.
Ash is in Hyper Rank now. ...... K. In spite of Iris being a champion, she's apparently being outperformed by gym leaders. Seriously, they should've saved this battle for hyper rank. I don't understand this episode. -_-
Most of the Dragonite moments / Episodes have been a solid 10/10 for me in some fashion and this episode certainly does have its moments. Dragonite giving Iris the biggest hug it can possibly give and Iris immediately reciprocating that hug is a kind of squee I cant really describe. The hurricante into Draco Meteor was definitely the best part of the episode but I'll immediately hate the creators of this show if they decide to replace Hurricane instead of Hyper Beam. *I still don't understand why it doesn't have giga impact. It know Dragon Dance for goodness sake.* However, there are some moments in this episode that just rubbed me the wrong way. The entire psychic link with Iris and Dragonite is one thing, the awkward pause when Iris is connecting with dragonite is drawn out for way to long and the psychic link didn't really do anything for me other than make me 85% certain Ash's Dragonite is a Girl. Aside from the hurricane moment at the end the battle wasn't really anything to write home about and in fact, I found myself skipping through a lot of it because it was just uninteresting. Overall, this episode was a Weird 7 / 10 for me.