>>54784354Golem's quite good in gen 2 because being highly defensive rock/ground type is pretty good when some of the best pokemon in the generation are Snorlax and Zapdos (curse Snorlax will still KO it with earthquake, but you can switch into a normal move and explode on it). It used to be considered good in gen 1 as well, since despite gen 1 infamously being the generation where special attackers were at a massive advantage with the two best psychic types (Mewtwo and Mew) having been banned in pretty much every competitive event from the time to when gen 1 was the current gen to today some of the best pokemon around actually match pretty poorly against golem (it can tank Tauros and Snorlax, Alakazam has a surprisingly bad movepool and can't thunderwave it so it's reliant on trying to OHKO with a psychic crit before dying to earthquake, and Gengar can OHKO with megadrain but can't safely switch in because of earthquake). Unfortunately Rhydon does the same thing but is slightly better in most cases, so while Golem was popular for a long time these days people only use it over Rhydon if they really need a rock/ground type that can also explode.
