Good topic. I definitely wanted Roth to kill Michael, even though I already knew the spoilers about the ending...Because imo I thought Roth had a good reason to want him dead to avenge Moe Greene (even though this was only 1 of the reasons). I mean, Moe Greene was a gangster and a killer too, but the reason Michael had him whacked was one that could be applied to innocent victims as well: "you don't give up your business - you die". A businessman victim of extortion could be killed for this reason as well, Michael didn't care about the "background" of the victim.

And another reason I would have liked Roth to win: I don't get it why the hell do young gangsters always win against the old ones (especially in fiction)? If it was a boxing ring or any other kind of direct / physical confrontation, it would be logical by default, but when it's about organizing, planning, giving orders etc, the older ones theoretically should have the upper hand: if they lived that long, they survived more attempts on their lives, have killed (or at least faced in other ways) more enemies, have more experience, have learned from past mistakes etc. While the younger ones who have yet to learn from future experience as bosses, they are often hot-headed and overconfident, this is often a direct way to the grave, yet Michael wins by pure aggression only, the same was with all those bosses in the 1st movie, or even worse with Vincent and all those international criminals all over the world in the 3rd one, it was ridiculous imo: if somebody makes so many enemies and goes at war with ALL of them at once, such a nut would never live long, since ONE person taking over would be dangerous for the underworld balances; like in real life, Salvatore Maranzano was killed when he was trying to make himself a dictator of the underworld with all those hits he was preparing...And Vincent ordered hits all over the planet, not just in the USA.

Sorry for the off-topic, but to sum it up, I definitely wanted Roth to kill Mike: also because I despised Mike as a character since the 1st movie, more than his father even: he was acting like a "good guy", all "clean", demonstratively distancing himself from crime, and then he becomes just like the others with no problem, no internal struggle at all. That makes him worse than all of the gangsters in the story imo, because he isn't only a killer, but a hypocrite as well. And the way he talked about his children when he argued with Kay who wanted to leave him; as if they were his property and not living people; "I am going to keep them no matter at what cost because they are MINE"; even though he didn't word it that way, but the meaning was more or less the same. For that alone he deserved a bullet in the head imo. Or between the legs or in the stomach, so he could suffer longer (sorry for being too...emotional).