Corkscrew already explained the teams really well, so i'm gonna skip that
This battle literally took hours, and as such you can expect mistakes to be made. Ray Jay had about 5 oppurtunities to kill Mienfoo early on, which would have allowed Pawniard to put much more pressure on Catcher's team, or even completely sweep it. Instead, he kept on trying to knock off, while it was clear that Catcher wasn't planning on losing his eviolite. I don't think the gligar vs magnemite play was a bad play, considering Catcher already outpredicted Ray Jay twice (first volt switch, then thunderbolt), and if that thing was Knocked Off, Tirtouga would have a much easier time sweeping. Although Gligar would've been useful in order to Knock Off Slowpoke, this wasn't a bad play per se
ray jay using morning sun as swirlix used belly drum wasn't a bad play, gtfo
what i'm mostly wondering about is if Catcher ran Thief on Swirlix. cause if he did, we are witnessing a 100% choke, as Catcher could have used it the turn Tirtouga set up, steal tirt's berry juice, and since Swirlix was at exactly 50% hp, it would consume it immediately, which means Aqua Jet would not be able to KO while Swirlix would still be faster (so swirlix would have swept). I'm really hoping Catcher ran something like Flamethrower....