I'm sorry, but like, I prefer Vs Cameron over the battle from today. Ash vs Cameron was literally a rebooted Ash vs A Moron, and it still managed to be entertaining in some aspects, animation was good enough, and the choreography made sense for the skill level of both characters at the time, as Ash was rebooted and Cameron just sucked.
The battle may have been a 5v6, but given how Ash was literally using Pokemon like Unfezant over his big hitters from Unova like Krookodile and other competent battlers like Leavanny, it made enough sense for me. Granted, the battle was still horrible, but today's battle just sucked beyond everything I have seen in years in the anime.
High expectations and potential contributes to bigger disappointments, and it's much easier to get disappointed with the strongest trainer in the world vs the one rival that Ash never managed to beat than two newbies fighting each other because naturally, your expectations for the battle will be much higher than usual.
In this case, Leon used G-Max Rillaboom for no reason, and it ended up contributing nothing to the battle other than not allowing him to utilize G-Max Charizard for what would have been a legitimately great and entertaining confront between G-Max and Mega Evolution, but instead, they presented no good justification as for why Leon used G-Max at that moment, other than once again showcasing just how much of a horrible Gimmick it is within the anime, not hitting Chesnaught with a single move, and having its moves blocked by Spiky Shield or dodged.
I'm not even hellbent on Leon using G-Max Charizard over G-Max Rillaboom, but rather about what was the reason for him to do so at the very beginning of the battle, that just felt like lazy writing and lack of effort when it comes to even make a nice choreography for a battle that ended up being horrible in every spectrum of the word for what should be the beginning of the tournament with the highest stakes for Ash up to this point, at least from what they pretend within the narrative.
But yeah, if Ash vs Cameron was a 5/10, this was a 4/10 easily. Both battles sucked and had horrible decisions, but this one, in particular, was a worse offender due to how much narrative weight it should have for the tournament and series in general, nice one writers.