The Legend of Zelda was expected to kill this match (which it obviously did), but it was also expected to kill Metroid so badly that Contra could sneak into second place. Zelda in general might not have gone Mario 1 and broke 70%, but this was a very impressive performance nonetheless. If I recall, Zelda 1 > Mario 1 was the consensus pick in future rounds. This poll really did nothing to prove otherwise. I forget the exact stats charmander posted in the stats topic, but the Mario 1 > Duck Hunt SFF compared with the Zelda > Metroid SFF here meant something like a 52-48 win for Zelda. This whole thing became more clear once Mario 1 got the chance at crushing Donkey Kong like a beer can, but more on that later.