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| - This was one of the more anticipated matches of the second round, as the favored first placer among them had laid one of the bigger eggs we'd ever seen in his last match. There was not only talk that Kirby, standing out as only he can against three mature characters, could take first, but that Big Boss - y'know, who had KILLED Kirbs in the previous match - could place or take first outright here even with Raiden holding him down. All he would need is luck and a Naked Snake pic on his side again... ...and for the first time it would matter, he didn't, and it would cost him. The board abandoned the MGS3 protagonist's train as quickly as they had gotten on, as now we were presumably dealing with the entity that had gotten tripled by Auron and needed Mario to beat Pac-Man. There was a good amount of chatter on the old man losing to Raiden, and it wasn't exactly unwarranted - Raiden had gotten the "wow" role of his career in MGS4. The first indication that most people got that Big Boss was even IN the game was the picture in this match. And as weak as he may have been last year in struggling to beat Sam Fisher, that's a far cry from being tripled by Auron. So when old man Boss started the match ahead of Master Chief, you better believe people took notice. Kirby was WAY out in front, which people were kinda anticipating at this point, but still... Master Chief behind a Big Boss with an old man picture, one that was being held down by Raiden (a Raiden that he was SFFing to death, but c'mon). Chief would break back into the lead based on his impressive bracket support, but Big Boss would not let up. By the night he had taken a decent lead of his own on Chief, and even though Chief would end up shredding that lead in minutes when the day vote hit, it was still a sight to see. As for the Chief/Kirby showdown, it ended up being the highlight of the match when Chief got going. Kirby was up by an insurmountable lead, but when the day came Chief gave it his all in what was likely his most impressive showing in this contest. Ending up only 1500 votes away from Kirby in a match where the MGS vote would have almost certainly broken his way had BB/Raiden not been there is something. Granted, we had to deal with the fact that Kirby is a bit of a cupcake when he's not standing out, but the fact remains - Chief holdouts had a little more to cling to after this match. As for Big Boss, he ended up having something more akin to MGS trends of old - running purely off of hardcore fans will do that - but the fact that he did as well as he did with Raiden holding him back was a sign that whether because of MGS4 or people just finally figuring out who the devil the guy is thanks to his Naked Snake pics, the Fox operative has come a long way in these things and clearly established himself as the #2 MGS character. Well done, old soldier. *salutes*
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