It was for Animal Crossing in general.
The original document that Sakurai dismissed the Villager and Nintendog stated "characters like the above will not be playable if it does not seem plausible for them to fight".
The Famitsu article that mentions Sakurai stating that he can make a Villager fight using a bug net and shovel mentions that the Villager strayed too far from Smash's image despite being able to make as a fighter.
While the Nintendo Power interview (the same one with the Ridley quote) states that he "looked at games like Animal Crossing and Nintendogs, where there aren't really any characters that lend themselves to fighting", the same interview gives conflicting information from the Famitsu article;
-The Nintendo Power interview mentions there being no new
characters since Captain Olimar that could work well in a fighting game.
-The Famitsu article mentions there being no
series since Pikmin that offered a suitable character.
The former is saying that
all characters that debuted after Olimar, including ones such as Mario's Bowser Jr. and every WarioWare character other than Wario himself, did not work well in a fighting game. However, this is contradictory because we have Ike, Lucas, and Lucario, all of whom debuted much after Olimar (Not listing Toon Link because he's another incarnation of Link).
The latter is saying that only the characters from new franchises that debuted after Pikmin were unsuitable. So this would only apply to say, Starfy or Chibi-Robo.
So signs are more pointing towards the Villager himself being the target rather than the series as a whole.