It was completely relevant because Ash based on some of highly questionable moves he made in Unova series wasnt battling at same level of strength, knowledge and adaptation as we get to dee in Sinnoh and i would dare to say Hoenn/Johto as well. At least i believe he didnt.
So Dawn Quillava being tied to Ash Pikachu in terms of strength doesnt add up much, if taken in account Ash downplay of skill and Pikachu being drained out of full power due to plot fix called Zekrom.
In fact i dont see anything so impressive in Dawn pokemon team or her battle skills that would warrant to be considered as stronger trainer than May, Misty, Cilan or Iris at all.
Nevermind fact that Iris, Cilan and Misty has more battling experience as trainers than May/Dawn have due to participating more in trainer battles than its case with coordinators.
Personally, I think that battle said more about Ash's superior skills than May's because she was in her element (contests) and had type advantage and still could not win. Ash could NEVER beat Dawn in a contest battle.
Unless you have proof to back up such claims your just blind guessing.
Especially when Ash proved time after time how he has ability of coming up with unorthodox, experimental strategies allowing him to manage himself in unknown elements. As consistently portrayed with all kind of competitions such as pokeringer, elemental tournaments focuing on one specific type, pokemon races, pokeathlon, sumo tournaments etc.
Contests being included. In fact only in few type of events hehad trouble to adapt appropriately, such as underwater battles as seein in scoring worse result than Misty when battling Dorian, fishing type of contests being too impatient , or specific sport based tournaments like ping pong.
Considering how for all intentsd and purposes May actually won more than she lost contests and many of them were won through downright knocking diwn opposing side through oure force.
Chances are that Dawn who in my opinion isnt any better as coordinator than May wouldnt crush Ash or have easy time either.
How many times have we seen Ash with the type advantage over gym leaders, for example, and still pull off the win. Yet when he went against Iris, he was crushed.
And how many times did we saw type advantage working in trainer or gym leader favor causing Ash to lose? You cannot talk in absolutes here dividing things in black and white thinking.
Ash lose against Iris wasnt result of "Iris superior battle abilities", but joint of all kind of factors.
Such as element of surprise, luck, type devantage, exhaustion of pokemon in battle, type of terrain, choice of attacks, skill and fact of Pikachu being downgraded in its strength not battling at full capacity.
Just because Iris defeated Ash in situation A, does not mean how exact same scenario would happen in B or C situation being type of propositional fallacy.
Totodile sucked and kingler was way overrated so that doesn't mean much. Besides, the Whirl Cup was a B level nothing tournament anyway.
Again making inference based on lack of evidence to support your claims. In post above yours i already covered Totodile subject with its wins against pokemon of respectable strength and big agility he was known for dancing on oppoing sdides attacks evading them;
-going against assesment of this pokemon being bad.
Kingler was anything but overrated. Until Frogadier it was possibly strongest water type Ash had handling by itself all three pokemon Mandi threw at him in Indigo league, destroyed Cloyster armor defeating it like it was childplay in second round and proved to have devastating power when one crab hammer attack was enough to cause several whirlpools in Whirl Cup.
Nonetheless Whirl Cup was anything but provincial like insignificant tournament as your trying to make it be. Attempt of trying to downplay strength of competition to discredit someone achievements and success as trainer doesnt make your position any stronger.
For start all kind of trainers from all kind of regions come and participate in this competition. To measure up strength, intelligence and compatibility with your pokemon.
It has lore based around itself about ancient times, water masters who learned how to use water specie to full potential in past, mystical items such as water pendant, sea sapphire etc being able to gather energy of all water pokemon at one place.
Winner gets prestigue title Alpha Omega of water pokemon serving as spring board in bringing you closer toward type master title and item which can increase power of water pokemon by multiple times.
Only best 64 can enter 6 rounds of battling with weak competition being eliminated through preliminaries with Misty coming top 8 or top 4 based on what kind of ranking system was applied there).
And is held only once every 3 years having according to story long and well known tradition behind itself as evidenced through prof. Elm and sea priest Maya talks.
So if anything Whirl Cup was highly prestigious and known worldwide that in some aspects it held bigger value than Grand Festivals themselves and definitely much bigger importance than Don George battle clubs.
So theory of this being "low class event" goes down the drain.
I've seen more anti-DP bias on this forum than pro DP, so I don't know what you're talking about.
There is far more love for DP to the point of becoming repulsively overrated, than its case with dislike if we go by polls and praise Sinnoh gets seeming to be fan favorite series on this site.
So indeed i have no idea from where you even get such presumptions.
Just because everyone didn't liked DP or thought it was "best series ever" doesnt mean how series are underrated.
If you want example of underrated that would be called Johto and Unova series.
