User blog comment:Nweston8/Top 18 Series of Robot Wars/@comment-4700688-20180305203331

This Series 9 write-up was fair on the whole, although there's still a couple of fights which feel a little artificially praised. Crackers 'n' Smash vs Coyote does not even qualify as 'average', and it's hard to praise Apollo vs CnS when it clearly lost so much footage in the edit. While I understand why you would like Carbide vs Crackers 'n' Smash, I found it dampened by the forfeit from a robot which already entered the arena with no weapons. Eruption vs Aftershock feels very Alex Brown Syndrome to me, it ended in a weak breakdown, and received hype based on Ó Briain's comment. The Aftershock panel saves a poor fight... except it was spoiled explicitly by the 'next time' preview. I can clearly see why you prefer Series 9, I just prefer the overall consistency of Series 8 episodes over a loose assortment of good battles in Series 9, and of course the truly 'best' fights belonged in the predecessor, with its much better champion.