>>57835043At some point May gives CotD advice that no matter who her opponent is 'She must go all out', in reference to CotD being nervous about battle phase. Notice in the previous screencaps May's bulbasaur looks out of it. Which is true, she's somewhat nervous but the problem is our girl is all about her right now that she didn't notice that, and that's also something that Brock noticed too.
So when the battle starts, Bulbasaur gets stage fright, which is understandable because the poor thing has barely been outside the forest and now it has to do a contest battle in front of all these people. Understandably, Bulbasaur starts underperforming and it doesn't help that May is brute-forcing the situation instead of being Mama-May and deescalating the situation. It all ends with Bulbasaur getting a 'battle off' (basically an involuntary disqualification) and May has a last pride moment by telling the staff that her Bulbasaur can still go, to which Nurse Joy tells her to fuck off, that her Bulbasaur is done for and she should be more caring about her Pokemon.
Of course our girl leaves the venue as the contest goes on, and Ash goes to console her. I thought he was going to mention that he also had his ego moments back in Kanto but I guess he didn't understand the situation so he just consoles her and tells her to cheer up and work harder.