No, but the fact she was specifically chosen for one of the biggest crossover franchises in video game history in addition to the main man Yabuki straight out saying no one in ARMS is especially important over one another equates to Spring Man never being that important or a mascot in the first place. At least with Robin over Chrom and Rex being a no show, both Chrom' and Rex's status as the main characters of their games were reaffirmed whereas Spring Man was equated as being as much of a protagonist as every other playable character in ARMS.
No, what it says is that he liked Min Min more and that she's a fan favorite.
Smash doesn't mean anything for Mascot status on its own. Min Min could become the third mascot, but Spring Man and Ribbon Girl were always the faces.
You're missing his point. Nobody is important in the story mode. It's because it has a story mode that doesn't change per the character. Some characters are blatantly more important than others. Max Brass is also an important character, and Dr. Coyle has a big story role(for DLC only). These two are also not playable in Story mode, which is the point.
You're ignoring way too much context here. Just like the fact you're ignoring the entire reason why Spring Man had a Manga planned. Because he's an important part of the franchise. More than Ribbon Girl, mind you. He's the face of it, the current series' mascot. Min Min never once held that status. Her getting into Smash was favoritism, nothing to do with main character or mascot status. Whether or not the fans liking her also influenced Yabuki is impossible to say. But she and Spring Man are cited as his favorite two characters. He holds them both in high regards. Maybe that was the tipping point; one is a fan favorite so he requested her to Nintendo. Simple.
SMAASH! Puppy
Yeah, I don't buy in any way that Sakurai was ever given a list of characters either. I'm not convinced. Let's just leave that be. I'm taking his statement very seriously, that Nintendo is fully choosing each character. Otherwise it would contradict his meaning. No, he didn't know how the story actually works. That's what I got from it, since that's the input he had issues with as is. But that's subjective, so I won't go further into it.
...Also, your quotes are broken, otherwise I'd just quote you. But agree to disagree, then?
Then why is he in the cover art? Why is it his stage that cane with Min Min? Why did Sakurai feel the need to adress the fact tgat he wasn't the pick? Why was his AT literally the first piece of ARMS content we got in the "biggest crossover in gaming history", far before Min Min made it in? And even when she did, why did her trailer, Final Smash and dedicated character art also feel the need to include him so prominently?
Going by that logic, you might as well be saying that Chun-Li and Heihachi aren't important in SF and Tekken, because we got Ken and Kazuya instead.
Smash isn't always this big deciding factor for what happens to other franchises. At most, it can give a second wind to dormant ones, but that's it.
To be fair, Ramen Bowl was not a good usable stage for Smash. Everything else? Yep. Spring Man is held in high regard without a single doubt. But it was obvious he(with somewhat Ribbon Girl) were the faces. Cover Arts aren't everything immediately, but they often play a role in marketing. Nobody else was marketed as the faces of the ARMS series at any point. The fact they advertised Spring Man as "possible" means that Nintendo also didn't care about his AT status.
