You know what... I'm going to be honest with all of you because of things I recently learned about past events. Like Lloyd and Sephiroth, this is yet another character that used to be talked about pretty openly by insiders like Sabi and Paragon on places like Twitter. Once again, public amnesia so this isn't anything new and I'm doing this because Paragon's actually pretty cool and nice and took the time to listen to me when I had a severe depression episode recently. After being hard **** on by the community, they're definitely owed an apology. That AT is in fact Waluigi.
Now, I make mention of this because I came to learn a few days ago that the Paragon Leak was a lot more complicated than the public was told and guilty parties involved damn well know their roles in it. Two big takeaways: Paragon was not a fraud and Paragon really did get a C & D over it. Yes, some of Paragon's info was right and this is what probably landed them in literal legal trouble, however, not all of it was. This is where Waluigi comes in.
Among insiders, Waluigi is kind of the king of red herrings for Smash. The guy is heard so often in insider circles that a vast majority of people just assume he's bait. An AT being promoted? That's a big deal and obviously a topic that emotions run high with. As I've joked on here and at Papageno's Discord, Waluigi is the Monkey's Paw of Smash characters. The topic is so toxic and potentially dangerous that after Paragon insiders pretty much decided to nope, nope, nope themselves out the door. "Is he real or is he fake? ****, man, I don't care enough to have Nintendo come after me over it..." Yes, this is why I have hard swerved the topic because it's the only character on the "list" that has debatably caused real problems and, it may not be my place to say this, but I think Paragon was done dirty by the whole damn thing and my limited interactions with them have definitely earned my respect.
Do I think Waluigi is 5? Hell no... I don't even know if he's going to be a fighter and was just thrown into the mix as an AH HA, GOTCHA character by Nintendo. Real? Fake? Neither outcome would really surprise me at this point. Again, the only reason I bring this up is because I know I personally publicly dragged Paragon for the Paragon Leak back in the early summer and I wanted to take this time to say that I'm personally sorry and they didn't deserve what happened to them.