Honesty, that battle was so dope, I didn't care who won. 'Sides, 2nd place is still a step up compared to his top 16 placing in his first league. My main concern is whether the people who worked on XY will stick around for the inevitable Sun and moon anime.
I mean, it was a great battle don't get me wrong, but it seriously feels like the ending wasn't meant to be like that.
It's not like they wrote Alain to be unstoppable like Tobias since ash has battled with Alain before and did very well despite not having perfected the synchro evolution. Alain's charizard definitely isn't out of greninja's power reach either since greninja was able to fight well against the champion's mega gardevoir.
I just find it really jarring how it played out. If they both went down and charizard got back up even that would have been better.
It's hard to believe that charizard; who staggered onto one knee after taking a quick attack and thunderbolt, would barely lose balance after the entire fight with greninja on top of the damage taken prior from pikachu.
On my personal feelings, I think it would have been a really good change to actually have him win. He was well written this season and actually grew as a character somewhat (I didn't even think it was possible for ash to develop as a character after hoenn started). Worked extremely hard for it this time and the competition was pretty fierce too.
Ironically though, if not for ash giving Alain the idea of entering the league, Alain wouldn't have even bothered and ash would have arguably won.
The writers would have just wrote in someone else to beat him instead.