User:Toon Ganondorf

I'm Toon Ganondorf (TG), an Australian lawyer and one of the founding members of Robot Wars Wiki.

Credit for this database belongs to many dedicated editors here, but I do not apologise for considering myself essential to its development and consider it among my finest achievements. I have single-handedly written over five hundred articles for this wiki, uploaded more than 1500 images and made personal contact with dozens of competitors and members of staff on the show. My edit count ranges somewhere in the 20,000 range. It was always my dream to see a website about Robot Wars thrive as much as Wikis on Super Smash Brothers, Call of Duty and Harry Potter, and I am proud to see that it is such.

Visit my blog if you are interested in my opinions on UK Robot Wars.

Current project page: User:Toon Ganondorf/Comprehensive List of Robot Wars Grudge Matches.

I hope you enjoy your time here.

Acknowledgements
I would like to take a brief space here to acknowledge all the tremendous roboteers who contributed to this Wiki being great.


 * Noel Poncelot, The Hassocks Hog - the first roboteer ever to correspond with me.
 * Laurie Calvert, Lightning
 * John Willoughby, The Steel Avenger - sent me a Steel Avenger keychain that, whilst too dorky to put on anything, I loved to receive.
 * Stuart Barnwell, Pussycat - amongst his many contributions, Barnwell debunked my most loathed fan theory - that Pussycat had failed to qualify for Series 6. He also put me in touch with Alan Gribble.
 * Tyke - without Tyke's team, we would never have learned the results of German Robot Wars.
 * WJ Dijkstra - made the videos of Dutch Robot Wars available, amongst many contributions
 * Jeroen van der Loo, Team KODOX (Arena Killer, Tough as Nails) - provided key information on Dutch and German Robot Wars.
 * Simon Cook, Chompalot

Least Favourite Robots

 * 1) Disc-O-Inferno - Held out to be the second coming of Hypno-Disc for smashing up a couple of D-list robots like Velocirippa, Hippobotamus, Tridentate and Spirit of Knightmare. Sure they broke Behemoth and Panic Attack, but neither were actually defeated in those battles so I can only give them so much credit. Horrendously unreliable (losing to Shadow of Napalm and Sir Chromalot, and setting itself intermiddedly on fire in Series 6) and just an unpleasantly overrated robot.
 * 2) Knightmare/Spirit of Knightmare - A puny flipper that managed a decent combat record basically because the seeding meant Vercingetorix had to fight Spawn of Scutter, because it was chosen over the superior Judge Shred to participate in the Annihilator in Bulldog Breed's place, and because it was lucky enough to be the last robot targeted.
 * 3) Storm 2 - Dominant robots like Chaos 2, Hypno-Disc and Razer spawne countless imitators. Many did not perform as well as their inspiration but still looked really good (I have a soft spot for Topbot and Ming 3). However, I loathe the idea of a six-wheel drive titanium brick sweeping the competition, not only for the naff battles it makes but also for how the imitators would follow suit.
 * 4) X-Terminator 2 - Of all the X-Terminators built between Series 3 and 6, why is this one the one that made the semis? Ponderous lifter and pathetic axe.
 * 5) Typhoon Twins - For making the most boring final ever.
 * 6) Bolt from the Blue - A pathetic lifter with no flair and the nerve to complain that Firestorm 2 beat it. A battle this boring, of course they'll put the veteran through, they've got a proven track record of being entertaining. BftB is disposable.
 * 7) Inshredable - A pathetic hunk that denied Anarchy a chance to defeat an actual functioning robot in its only 1v1 battle.
 * 8) Wild Thing 2 - A contender for worst semi-finalist ever, I bet not one person was rooting for it against 259.
 * 9) Dantomkia - I've always found Mike Lambert to be really arrogant, especially that quote about all the robots he flipped out of the arena.
 * 10) Razer - Many will be surprised to find Razer at 10, a robot I've pretty much scorned for the last 7 years. Have I backed off on it? Yes. Do I still think most of its titles were rigged? Of course I do. You have to be a fool to think the show didn't rig things for Razer, it was wildly popular with fans. Hypno-Disc got pretty easy heat runs in Series 4 and 6 as well. But I guess my main problem with Razer is just exposure fatigue. It's impossible to get excited about All-Stars or World Championships when Razer wins them all the time. It's like Julia Louis-Dreyfuss at the Emmys. When you've won five times in a row, I just don't care anymore. I want someone else to win!
 * 11) Tornado - I really like Tornado in Series 4, but with the weight gain and implementation of the charity scoop I start to get bored of it really quickly. Same as Storm 2, it just rams everything around and the battle isn't balanced. That's the great thing about Robot Wars - flippers often hate axes, thwackbots hate rear-hinged flippers, crushers don't like spinners, but robots like Tornado don't make it a fair playing field. Lower on my list because robots like Bigger Brother did in fact find a way.
 * 12) Joint Colossus/Cygnus X-1 - A pair of really underwhelming flippers that had no business qualifying for Series 7, the series of M2, Atomic and Bulldog Breed.
 * 13) T2 for its boring name and lack of weapons.
 * 14) TR2 for being a less memorable flipper next to Apollo due to its vanilla name. Seriously, why couldn't you just keep "Tantrum" and "Toon Raider"?