You really want to be spoiled? I can tell you about that one, and why I think they did it that way, if you want.

Right, then. Anime, because the manga Ryouma v. Sanada isn't done yet.

First, Ryouma wins. They see-saw back and forth for a while, and for a very little bit it looks like Ryouma will get his butt kicked, but he's the hero of a shounen series, so we all know better. What I especially liked was that all of Ryouma's past opponents gravitate to the match and, in his darkest hour, remind him that he'd damn well better not lose because he's carrying their honor. He more or less takes on their spirits, and that's how he pulls out the win. Way cool.

The moderately annoying part is that the other Rikkai matches were pretty much gutted. Jackal and Marui didn't get much air time. Yagyuu and Niou didn't get to pull their really cool switch, though there was a lot of GP lurve to make up for it. Kirihara's match with Fuji was, frankly a joke. No head injury, no playing with eyes closed, no real epiphanies. Only Yanagi and Inui survived with their match pretty well intact.

The reason for that annoyance, however, seems to have been to take all the cool parts and give them to Ryouma. Ryouma uses the eyes-closed technique. The lines in English that he originally said to Kirihara in the match that the anime cut entirely, he now says to Sanada (I thought that was a peculiar choice).

Personally, I think the anime writers kind of botched up the Rikkai arc as a whole. There was no need to steal the other players' thunder in order to make Ryouma and Sanada look better. However, I did think the Ryouma Sanada match was the very best part of this arc, and in the end Ryouma gains another good opponent. Sanada is not crushed by his loss. I liked that.