User:ToastUltimatum/Seeing Robot Wars Live

Series 8
As soon as tickets for the new series were made available, I didn't mess around getting tickets to go see it! Naturally for a Robot Wars fan as big as myself, there was never any doubt this would be one of the highlights of my life. I'd never been to Scotland in my life, nor had I even had a holiday with my girlfriend of the time, but a trip to Paisley would sort this out good and proper. Scotland was a great place to be, I could honestly see myself living there one day. Going around Glasgow, as well as the place that made my favourite pair of paisley trousers well known was a lot of fun, and that's not even mentioning the spa hotel that we stayed in, just a short walk from the Robot Wars Arena.

But of course, you aren't here to read about my Scottish trip, you want to hear about Robot Wars. You could definitely say I got the short end of the stick in a way, as I only got to see four battles, compared to the lofty seven+ that some other users here were treated to. The matches I saw were important ones though, so let's have a chat about them.


 * Eruption vs Apollo - The first match I got to see was a flipper-on-flipper fight. The first reaction was 'I guess they failed to restrict the HARDOX flippers then'. Not a problem by my standards! I was a bit confused as to how Apollo had qualified, as I already knew about many live event flippers and other well known machines like Gravity getting the big no, as Apollo looked quite basic in its design, and I didn't recognise the team. Once I learned the Chronic connection, it all made sense, and Apollo's subtle space shuttle design grew on me quickly. That doesn't mean I was cheering for it though! Not knowing which robots would be in the series, Eruption had been my pick to be a Robot Wars champion since the start, especially with Ripper and Dystopia uninvolved. It's definitely a personal favourite, and I hoped to see Apollo thrown out of the arena. It was a little too difficult, but Eruption won this one solidly, and the "E-RUP-TION!" chant we had going will forever be stuck in my head, and I loved the fight. Eruption's into the Heat Final, brilliant! Wait, what? They're out? You must be joking! It should also be mentioned that as Eruption entered this fight without its overhead claw or appendages, I was very confused when I saw its profile on the Robot Wars website.
 * Storm2 vs PP3D - It's definitely true that the selection of robots I saw live were mostly newcomers, or new machines from old teams, so seeing Storm2 turn up was refreshing. It was the runner-up of my favourite series, and the winner of the first episode I remember watching, after all! I made my predictions, and I had Storm2 down as the comfortable winner. This came true, though I was blown away by PP3D's huge damage to the side of Storm2, I'd never seen anything like it. Shame PP3D had to break down randomly, but I did want to see Storm2 progress. Only after I'd got home did I realise that this was a bloody Grand Final rematch!!
 * Pulsar vs Ironside3 - I'm listing this one first because this battle was filmed first, ignore the TV edit. I have no clue why they changed the order, honestly. This battle has been the subject of much controversy, but I can say that while the Judges were deliberating in real life, I came to the opinion that Pulsar deserved to win the battle, as the 10 second immobilisation rule had been made quite clear by Eruption vs Apollo earlier in the day. Once I found out about Storm2 beating Eruption despite being immobile for twenty seconds, my opinion was tainted somewhat, but ultimately only one of those two battles can be wrong, and I think Storm2 vs Eruption was the one that had been misjudged. It was a good fight, and I was proud of myself when I'd accurately called the winner. When I saw Pulsar go out to Chompalot in Round 1, I was... surprised, to say the least.
 * Gabriel vs Beast - The final fight of the day was Gabriel vs Beast. I liked both of these machines, although I was somewhat disappointed that Storm2 was the only veteran robot I saw during my entire trip. We knew because of the previous match that Gabriel needed to win this by KO to qualify, so that's what I was cheering for. As you might be able to guess, this was the battle where I got to see untelevised footage, the crowd were egging Gabriel on to attack more, and probably didn't like the fight. I didn't join in with this chant, as I knew Beast was immobile, and I wanted the Judges to notice, so I got to enjoy several minutes of Gabriel dancing in its upright position. It wasn't the greatest battle, but I loved Team Saint's line about fortuitous violence, that was actually part of a failed take but they still managed to include it, to my relief, and I was also relieved that Gabriel got the full three points. I should note that this battle was delayed by a few minutes, because Beast's flipper fired itself and broke while the team were in the trenches. It made the outcome slightly obvious. This is also the battle where I ever so slightly snuck on-screen, even if Rencudia was covered up by a steel bar.

All in all, despite the lack of battles, fantastic. There was one nagging problem though - the guy sat next to us acted as our friend throughout, but he wasn't afraid to insult the entertainer's clothes, challenge Dara Ó Briain to a battle to the death with Craig Charles, intercept the throw when the entertainer was giving my girlfriend a foam hand to take it for himself, and nab the after-show conversation with Angela Scanlon in my stead. Thanks 'mate'. >:(

Series 9
So before talking about my experience as an audience member of Series 9, perhaps I should first disclose my experience as an applicant - I was indeed part of a team who applied to compete. Team Crazy 88 competed in the last series with Crazy Coupe 88, but Tyrone's wife didn't fancy going up to Scotland for a second time, so Ellis took to Facebook to see if anyone wanted to fill the fourth slot. John Findlay was aware of me not only being a Yorkshireman like Team Crazy 88, but also how much I wanted to fulfil a childhood dream, so being the nice man he is, he put my name forwards. My name and photo were officially on the application form for Iron Heart 88, but unfortunately the wedge-flipper factor let us down. I also had an offer from the new Team Prizephita to join them if Iron Heart 88 didn't get selected, as I was talking with the team after updating their wiki article and buying Prizephita Mach 2's gas valve from them, but despite the producers specifically contacting the team to make sure they planned to apply, they suddenly decided they weren't interested in giving Team Prizephita a second chance. Two teams offered me places, and both got rejected. Just my luck, eh? So I ordered my audience tickets instead.

In hindsight, I can see that only being in the audience for four fights last time was a bit of a rough deal, when people like Jimlaad got to see nine fights. Needless to say, I've trumped everyone by being in attendance for a whopping eleven fights! That's an unbeatable record, not even the guys who watched full recordings of Battle of the Stars can come close to that. Naturally I wasn't supposed to see this many fights, but there's a good explanation as to why this happened - more on that later.

This time I went to filming with YouTuber Alexthehunted, someone who I'd previously recorded a podcast with. It was refreshing to simply chat about Robot Wars with a fellow fan of the show, because that's a liberty I'd never had the pleasure of doing offline, aside from talking to my best mate. What's more, Alex told me that Votesaxon07 would be at filming on the same day, so it was all sounding very social!

So we were supposed to see eight fights, starting from the afternoon session at 1pm. But of course, knowing that Robot Wars was being filmed, we couldn't bring ourselves to be anywhere else! We turned up at about 11am - remember this for later!

When we arrived in the tent, I was surprised to see so many roboteers walking around casually! Last series I only saw Ed Hoppitt walking around on his phone, so I was already having a better experience when I saw Team Chimera standing around, and we went for a chat. Unfortunately I didn't test Jordan Mann on his ability to name any team member, but it was here that I first learned of TR2 being a reserve. We were shocked to the core, but kept the secret - I'm not sure who leaked that piece of information. However I can say that the purported reason for TR2's exclusion being "lack of improvements", this certainly matches up with what I heard from Team Chimera, as they and Foxic qualified on the basis of their vast improvements. I also saw Team Forsey, but I didn't approach them, because I was a little disappointed that their robot had been brought back, if I'm being completely honest.

That's when we got a nice little surprise. Unbeknown to us, PP3D had just smashed Cherub into the arena wall and broke it, meaning that filming had to be halted for a while. The arena still had some empty seats in it, so they decided to let us in over an hour early! We walked in, caught a glimpse of (a robot in round two), managed to quickly put my hand on (another robot in round two), and sat ourselves down in an almost totally empty block of seats, right next to someone who we later realised was the host of ACTIVATE! Podcast! We were right in front of a heater too - it was going to be a good day. And with that, the first 'fight' got underway.


 * Cherub vs PP3D - Now I say that we saw eleven fights at filming, but it would be more accurate to say that we saw... 10.2? With the broken Cherub and PP3D both sitting in corners of the arena, and the three of us also sat in the corner of the studio, I couldn't see a thing. Will soon upload a picture of my view of the fight. After fifteen seconds, cease was called, and the fight was sent to the Judges. It was our natural assumption that PP3D had the win just by looking at Cherub, flipped over and dead, but Angela revealed the winner and we were pleasantly surprised. We'd already fallen in love with the new white paintjob and wings. I'm narrowly of the opinion that Cherub deserved the win, so no salt from me.
 * Supernova vs Frostbite - Yes this was the filming order. Technically this heat was always planned to be Episode 5, Thor's heat just jumped forwards two spaces is all. I walked past Supernova on my way into the arena (also got to put my hand on Pulsar), and I'm ashamed to admit I said out loud "it looks like Mayhem!" I think the team heard me. Oops. Glad I'm not the only one who thinks it at least. Anyway this battle was phenomenal. The most damage I got to see last series was PP3D tearing a bit of Storm2's armox up, but here I got to see a robot totally obliterated, which was very new to me. What was the hardest part? Keeping it secret from everybody that Frostbite made Round 2! Everybody wrote this thing off immediately. I can't say I told you so because I had an extremely unfair advantage, but looking at Frostbite's melee, I would've put my money on them. Wyrm was still from the same team as Overdozer after all, and HIGH-5's wheels were so exposed. Frostbite had kids behind the wheel, and it still had a bar spinner, I thought Supernova would dodge it. I didn't quite get that right, as it turned out, but Frostbite qualified regardless.
 * Pulsar vs Ironside3 - My feelings. Never before have I spent four months adamantly thinking a Judges' decision was wrong, only to be immediately satisfied with the outcome later on. At the time of filming, I didn't know about the circumference rule, so when the Judges (quite quickly, might I add) awarded a unanimous decision to Pulsar, I could've launched to my feet in shock. I said to Alex "how did they make the fight between these two controversial again?" Team Outlaw were visibly pissed off in the cut interview, and even Ellis couldn't really justify his win. Speaking of cut footage, Ironside3 did try to push the immobile-ish Pulsar into the pit, even if it didn't succeed. But now I know about the circumference rule plus the two points awarded to Ironside3, I'm perfectly fine with the outcome. However...

That was the end of the first filming session, and it's fair to say that the 2.3 fights we got to see that we were never meant to were a bloody good bargain. Even if we were absolutely in uproar about Pulsar's win. This was then the moment we found out about TR2. I didn't know how to feel about this filming experience so far haha. But in we went for the afternoon session...


 * Heavy Metal vs M.R. Speed Squared - And here, my suspicions were confirmed. M.R. Speed Squared was back, and from a distance, it still looked uninteresting, as it completely lacked top armour still. This was also my first time seeing Heavy Metal, and I reacted much like you lot. What is it? However I was very pleased to see it take a commanding victory, although I somewhat struggled to buy the hype behind John Denny Jr's driving when I saw him drive into the pit in the very first match I watched of Heavy Metal.
 * Concussion vs Thor - Pretty much everything that could be said about this fight has already been said, I was pleased when Thor drove into the drum because I was cheering against the seeds, but even us audience members could tell he should've backed off. It was much more obvious to us that the belt came out of Concussion, not Thor. Something I can tell you all is something that a Reddit user already revealed, but some of you might not know. On TV, Rogue House Robot activated twice. In reality, Thor used Rogue House Robot at the start of the match, and did indeed press the tyre later into the match, but nothing happened. Jason even said in his cut interview "I pressed the pit button but I forgot I'd already used it!" It was just a few seconds later that Matilda and Dead Metal happened to get stuck in, not because of the button, but simply because they were needed. And they messed up big time.
 * Eruption vs Cherub - Now most people who saw the fights I did would say something like Supernova vs Frostbite would be their favourite fight of the day. Not me. I attended filming with my fingers crossed, desperately hoping to see Eruption, particularly with an OotA. I shot to my feet when Cherub sailed over the wall, and then Dara Ó Briain revealed they'd already flipped Behemoth out! And yes, Cherub WAS moving before the fight started. Only on one wheel, but I believe it was narrowly escaping its own circumference. I seem to have a running gag with Eruption at filming; I always get to see it fight in the new series, yet it always looks exactly the same as the robot I knew. In Series 8, it had no gripper or spinner panels for its fight with Apollo, and here they entered with the gripper! I admit I wondered how an unchanged Eruption qualified when TR2 didn't, but I was totally pumped, and this solidified Eruption as one of my all-time favourites. I even got to speak to the team briefly after the show ended just to tell them this was the highlight of the night.
 * Behemoth vs PP3D - I closely followed everybody's predictions for the winner of this heat, and in all honesty, I was so surprised by the number of people that said PP3D would beat Behemoth. Yes I had the advantage of knowing about PP3D losing to Cherub and Behemoth's new scoop was right in front of me, but I firmly believed Behemoth would take it. This wasn't a bad battle by any means but it's probably the one I remember the least from my live viewing, probably because it went exactly as I predicted, just with more sparks. I admit to saying "well with only Cherub left to fight, Behemoth's basically got this Heat Final wrapped up".
 * Thor vs M.R. Speed Squared - What do you even say here? I was already disappointed to see M.R. Speed Squared in the competition, and this showed exactly why. I described this as "the rematch nobody wanted", and I was amazed that it was even more one-sided than before.
 * Concussion vs Heavy Metal - Back in Series 8, I was disappointed that our E-RUP-TION chant never made it to the TV edit. Here, you can quite audibly hear our HIT THE WHEEL chant, and that didn't even happen! I wanted to see Heavy Metal win this and I was a little upset how ineffective their wedge proved, but seeing the wheel fly out of the arena was a good note to end things on.

And so that was it! It was late and I'd knowingly missed my train, but I'd say an extra £50 to see four more fights was well worth it, plus it afforded me more time in Glasgow the following day, especially as I was offered a free night in a hotel! The fun didn't even stop there, because after Alex and I spent the whole day trying to solve the mystery of where Votesaxon07 disappeared to, that's when we learned he was part of the Push to Exit team! We got to meet him and Anthony Murney after filming, which was an additional bonus to close out one spectacular day. Needless to say, I will go to any length to ensure I'm back in the studio for Series 10!!

Series 10
I did indeed have a crack at trying to be a participant again in Series 10, this time with my featherweight, The Tragic Roundabout. However, with featherweights getting cancelled, my only option was to join Matt Smith's crazy clusterbot Crowd Control, and stick my robot in a mess of others including the likes of Satanix and Crocbot. We weren't selected, likely because The Swarm actually met the required number of team members for starters, but hey, it was worth a try.

Relegated to the audience once again, this time I tried to really organise a friend group to remember. I met up with Alexthehunted once again for the duration of filming, but gained two new surprises too. Without it being planned in advance, I got talking with Barnone from the Out of the Arena Discord, and we realised that we were both going to the same filming session, so we met up to attend it together. The final member of the pack was none other than our own Jimlaad43, and we'd craftily ordered our tickets separately, reserving a 'plus one' for each other, so we got to go to two whole days of filming!!! Although Barnone was only with us for the first day, the rest of us saw ELEVEN fights inside the arena, and a further three on the TV screens in the waiting area! This made for a phenomenal amount of content to study while waiting for the series to air, yet spoiled very little, as we never went beyond the end of the Robot Redemption Knockouts. When we left filming, 10 robots were eliminated in two fights we all saw, and 20 robots were left in!

Jimlaad and I were determined to get on-screen in the programme this year. Jimlaad provided us both with Diotoir fur ponchos, expecting to see Diotoir compete in the series, while I made some Eruption and Carbide banners from scratch to wave around. The camera filmed us directly, and I even got to have a word with Angela Scanlon because she loved the fur, but it seems Series 10 conveniently wants to cut down on shots of the audience mumble grumble

Oh and Jimlaad brought his Robot Wars Top Trumps. That was a laugh. Cyrax is completely broken.


 * Eruption vs Crackers 'n' Smash vs Aftershock - When this fight aired on television, there was clearly some controversy as to whether the robots should have ceased for safety reasons or not, which admittedly taints an otherwise amazing battle. We had no clue about this while watching on the TV screen in the waiting room - we simply walked in, saw Eruption blast Aftershock out of the arena, completely out of the blue, and then this was followed up by the ejection of Crackers AND Smash. I unashamedly declared that this sat among my top twenty favourite fights already, and this was only the first battle we saw!! ...Then the arena took four hours to repair :/
 * Carbide vs Gabriel 2 vs Big Nipper - Well we certainly had no clue the robots were even called Gabriel 2 and Big Nipper, they were introduced to us as just Gabriel and Nipper! This was my first time ever seeing Carbide in person, and I admit it impressed, although I was cheering for Gabriel 2 the whole way through. A whole tyre had been shredded, after all! At the time I reluctantly agreed with the Judges' decision in favour of Carbide, although with the power of hindsight, I discovered that Big Nipper was in fact immobilised by Gabriel when I assumed it was the fault of Carbide, and the lasting damage to Carbide caused by Gabriel had a much bigger effect than Carbide's damage. Slightly more questionable now... Ultimately though, this battle was a complete epic to experience live.
 * Sabretooth vs Apocalypse - There's only so much I can say about this one, because I watched it on a TV screen without audio, and I hardly recognised what Apocalypse even was, so I cheered for the aggressive newcomer until it broke down while I wasn't looking.
 * The Swarm vs Donald Thump - Blame me for this one. James Davies had given me his phone number so he could meet me and everyone else once he had a spare moment, which he did, real lovely guy. However, while the match was setting up, I decided to send him a 'good luck text'. It then becomes clear that Donald Thump's weapon just broke. Oops.
 * Aftershock vs Gabriel 2 - We truly couldn't believe a match of this calibre was already happening, but this is another fight where seeing it in person truly conveys the damage. Gabriel flew. I admit I was rooting for Gabriel 2 to win, but this was still a satisfying match, and Big Nipper avenged it later!
 * Big Nipper vs Crackers 'n' Smash - The highlight of filming. Going into the fight, I expected this to be a dull match between two weaponless clusterbots, and a disc-equipped Big Nipper which would just graze the sides of its opponent for a few cuts and scratches. Mark my words when hilarity ensues, and Crackers is flattened by Sir Killalot. Jimlaad noticed Smash within the proximity of the arena wall, and said to me, "do you think Big Nipper could get an OotA?" I laughed it off, and right when I tried to call it impossible - BAM - out it went, hitting the lights in the process. I absolutely exploded onto my feet, you can even see it in the background of the televised edit. I knew that a battle between two robots I was totally impartial to had just become one of my favourite battles of all time. Incredible. I also had a conversation with Big Nipper's team about which weapon they'd use against Aftershock. They replied with "I think we'll lose regardless of which weapon we choose!"