>>51467853He probably has, but in his defense, without the immense amount of plot armor they're giving Ash to pit him against Leon (and win), Cynthia would win.
Ash shouldn't have beaten Steven, let alone anyone else. He is an actual child going up against people several age categories older than him, and those people have pokemon that have been around (theoretically, because it's seldom talked about) for a lot longer than any of Ash's pokemon have been, and have seen some shit and done some shit.
But nah, Ash HAS to win against Leon and everyone else involved because he got cheated from winning the Gen 6 round, and gen 7 was a gimmie to sate people's bloodlust for how his frog jobbed, but it only did the opposite of that, further fueling people.
Now we're in a state where Stevenfags and Cynthiaschitzos are being put down for their losing to Ash, but we're all ignoring the fact that all of this is only happening to appease the investors who clearly see that people are unhappy with how Ash got blueballed in gen 6 and saw a massive decline in the Anime viewership. (mind you, I say "massive" as if its from an investor's POV, since any small loss of monetary income is taken as a huge loss to them)
