Board Thread:Episode Discussions/@comment-1251315-20150507113846/@comment-25319479-20150509120003

Okay, if the finals did take place it would of been a 1 on 1 bracket tournament, which would take at-least 20 more episodes to see them all. And come on, everybody has seen the rookies ability's and everybody already knows that they all become chunin. So its not surprising to me that we're not gonna see the final as Studio Pierrot probably thought it would of been way to long and boring.

And i doubt they cut short the arc because if your gonna tell a story, Gaara's assassination is the climax of the story, not something that happens in the middle of the arc.