I know, yet another Pokemon theory. Sue me, I just love the franchise so much (please don't, I don't have enough money for that). Anyway, lets just get on with the theory.
The Pokedex has hyperbole. Like a lot of hyperbole.
Macargo is as hot as the sun! If you look at Shedninja from the back, it'll eat your soul! Any punches and kicks merely slide off Goomy! Heck, even look at my last theory, where we explored the weirdness of Hitmonchan hitting as fast as a bullet train.
But why? Clearly these aren't true, as that would seriously break the game, as fighting types wouldn't have a hope against Sliggo, and your character would probably be very, very dead (along with potentially the rest of the world).
Well, I have three theories for why this happens, all of which could be possible. Starting with the first (because, you know, that's how lists work):
That's what you get when you get ten year old kids to make your scientific documents.
In Pokemon Red and Blue (and probably Yellow, but that's just anime Pokemon, so nyah (just kidding...please don't hurt me genwunners...).). Professor Oak decides to push a ten year old out into the world to fill their Pokedex and list every single type of Pokemon in the region, so that he can spend more time writing letters to your mum instead of doing actual Pokemon Professor work. So you go off and start to fill the Pokedex. Now, being a ten year old lad, he's not going to know about scientific rigorous experimentation, and even if he did, he's probably not going to care. He's here to battle and win, not do tests in controlled environments and all that faffery. So he's going to want to make his pokemon seem cool and awesome and put loads of legends and things he thinks it would be cool for Pokemon to be able to do. So that's how you end up with Pokedex entries about how his water mon can destroy entire cities (...Gyarados...). However, the only problem is that this is only the plot of Red and Blue, and other games have slightly more responsible Professors who push the kids out into the world to learn about Abilities, or simply just to learn stuff in general because they saved them from a Zigzagoon and so are mature enough to travel around a huge region (I did only say slightly), but it could be that that was done before by other ten year old kids, we just didn't see them, because they didn't have to deal with people stealing Pokemon and destroying the world and such.
The Pokeballs weaken Pokemon
It might just be that when a Pokemon is put inside a Pokeball, it weakens their powers to the point where they aren't able to do the crazy stuff that they would be able to in the wild. This is actually obliquely referenced in canon, where in Pokemon Platinum, Diamond and Pearl Chiron uses the Red Chain in order to capture the Legendaries, as to prevent them from having their powers suppressed by ordinary Pokeballs. This would also be possible, because through the games you see them being handed to nursery school children (which is a seriously bad idea, but anyway), so it would be done by the Pokemon League and all sanctioned Pokeball creators in order to prevent the children from accidentally killing someone or themselves with a Pokemon they found.
They purposefully don't use the abilities themselves for whatever reason
Pokemon fights in the game are more like sporting sparring matches, rather than all out brawls, with set rules (such as only one attack per turn and you can attack or heal - not both). Therefore it wouldn't be desirable for them to outright murder the opponent's Pokemon, neither for the Pokemon (because you know, they're sentient beings who would probably know if they killed another being) nor for the Pokemon trainer (they probably wouldn't be allowed to continue doing league fights). Therefore, a desire for fair play and actual sport in Pokemon battling would cause the trainer to teach the Pokemon to not use their most ridiculously unfair advantages and for Pokemon to stop themselves from hitting too hard or attacking too badly, as they want to have an interesting battle rather than just brawl. This could be backed up by the Pokemon League, as they could set rules on things that Pokemon can do in actuality, but won't be allowed to do in Pokemon League battles, with the risk of the Pokemon trainer losing their ability to battle gyms, and it would be such an inherent part of their culture that Pokemon follow those rules when they belong to a trainer that no-one challenges or breaks them, not even the bad guys.
Personally I prefer the first theory, but you can make your mind up. I swear I'll do a different thing next week (hopefully).
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