User blog:ToastUltimatum/Top 50 Behemoth Fights

Behemoth is a robot I've never felt too strongly about. I've never once called myself a "Behemoth fan", but I certainly don't dislike it either. I love flippers, and Behemoth always had my respect, but I've never really cheered it onto heat victory (until Series 10). It's the robot that was present for almost all of Robot Wars ' entire run, and simply by being in attendance for almost every series, Behemoth ended up in some of the greatest fights of all time. I have my entire Top 50 in front of me, and there's some fights that I can't believe didn't make the top ten!

So here we are, with the Top 50 Behemoth fights! I've ranked these entirely based on how much I like the fights this time. While I definitely could have attempted an objective ranking in the vein of NJGW's Ultimate Countdown, there are a couple of Behemoth fights out there that I feel strongly about, which otherwise fall under the radar. Rather than putting these fights higher or lower than I would want to, I'm just going to rank them with my personal enjoyment as the only criteria - especially as a neutral party who can't really be biased in favour of Behemoth, or biased against it.

I did consider throwing in the three Anty B fights... but then it wouldn't be a Top 50, would it? The non-battle events such as the Gauntlet, Trial and Sumo Basho are also covered in their own list. So with that, let's get started!

The Unrateables
Before we get to the main entries, Behemoth had five fights which took place in the Robot Wars arena, but never aired on television. One of those is fully accessible online, so I'm comfortable including that on the main list, but the rest naturally cannot be accurately ranked. As a small prequel list, I'll attempt to rank those through pure guesswork alone!

5. Southern Annihilator, Round 3
Oh, and let's chuck this one in too, just so we have a clear bottom of the list, definitively the worst Behemoth fight of all time, the one that didn't even begin! If I were granted the power of time travel then bringing Behemoth a spare gear for this fight would be on my agenda, right after I deliver Vulture a new drive motor...

4. Vs TR2 (Series 9)
Not the Battle of the Stars fight, but the whiteboard match which was filmed immediately afterwards, under the controls of the actual team members. Perhaps I should commission Jimlaad43 to write this section, considering he saw the fight in person! Indeed it was his description which allows me to know what happened in this fight, and it just sounds terrible. In it, TR2's flipper didn't work, resigning it to the wedgebot we saw against Supernova and Or Te, except this time it's against a flipper. Unsurprisingly, Behemoth ends it in seconds, but knowing that this was a whiteboard fight designed to keep the crowd happy while Team Eruption desperately try to repair their robot before the Series 9 title fight, Behemoth flips TR2 back onto its wheels every time after they had already secured the knockout. One of the most frustrating things about whiteboard fights is that they tend not to have a winner, and Behemoth probably won this several times over... until TR2 pushes Behemoth into the pit!! TR2 gets another win notched against its name all because Behemoth tried to provide some more entertainment, and given that 99% of Robot Wars fans never saw this fight, I would honestly prefer a Behemoth OHKO here just for the statistics.

3. Vs Cerberus (Series 3)
Nobody knows why this fight took place. Nobody know what happened in this fight. Nobody knows who won this fight... although I think I can guess! Even the Behemoth team themselves can't recollect this fight whatsoever despite seeing the picture and acknowledging that it must have happened, surely the only possibility is that it was over within one or two flips.

2. Vs Gabriel (Series 8)
This was the only one of the four whiteboard fights in this section to actually get some screentime on television, as a landmark shot in the Series 8 opening. Based on this single clip, and the fact that Gabriel won this by Judges' decision, you'd think this could've been a corker of a fight! I haven't seen the battle, so I can't say for sure, but I would guess it probably wasn't. Gabriel is known to have lost drive on one side very early into this match, and yet despite being immobile, it still did enough to win the battle via decision. The decision of... the audience. I'm glad we have an official winner for this one, but I'm not too sure I can trust the audience here, Behemoth may have been cheated out of a whiteboard win AGAIN...

1. Vs Eruption (Series 8)
Seemingly the only good option! This is not the Eruption whiteboard fight I dream of seeing, as I would absolutely love to see it throw Shockwave out of the arena, while I'm slightly less enthralled about the first of four Eruption vs Behemoth fights in Robot Wars, but this still probably would've been quite decent! I can imagine it being much like the Series 10 encounter, except with the known knockout against the arena wall that Eruption righted Behemoth from... probably a good decision to help it qualify for Series 9! This fight sounds like Behemoth's weakest showing out of the unrateables, but the best fight overall.

The Non-Fights

 * 5. Gauntlet (Heat) - Strangely the Gauntlet run where Behemoth performs better is actually the one which was less enjoyable! Behemoth completes the Gauntlet here, but that was such a common occurrence in Series 2 that I don't remember this. I just want to pick up that breezeblock and remove it from Behemoth...
 * 4. Gauntlet (Semi-Final) - This was a much weaker Gauntlet performance, but Shunt overturning Behemoth added some merit, it really highlighted the size difference.
 * 3. Trial (Football) - Behemoth's goal in the football trial was probably the most limp, the flimsy hooks it used to control the ball could clearly be bent by hand, and every time I see Milly-Ann Bug perfectly grip the ball, I forget it gets eliminated here. However, Razer's earlier efforts boost this above the Gauntlet runs, as it really was remarkable how ahead of the pack Razer truly was for its time.
 * 2. Trial (Pinball) - Behemoth actually got the second-lowest score in this Trial, but it certainly didn't look it, they were doing perfectly well until they get pitted by Sir Killalot. And yet, that pitting from Sir Killalot is the only thing I've listed in this section that I actually remembered before rewatching the segments for this list, so it jumps to second place!
 * 1. Sumo Basho - This really shouldn't be Number 1, it's sixty seconds of two robots doing diddly-squat. Sadly, that was the aim of the game in Sumo Basho, and a successful run in Sumo made for a refreshing change compared to the failed attempts, and both Behemoth and X-Terminator 2 felt like worthier winners of the event than Panic Attack.

50. Vs Terrorhurtz (Series 8)
Immediately you can see why this was written as a personal ranking, and not an attempt at objectivity. On an objective scale, this fight finishes at least seven places higher, because this one genuinely does start well. Terrorhurtz, with no axe, puts on an excellent display of controlling a trigger-happy Behemoth around the arena, avoiding imminent doom. Behemoth does eventually complete the single flip needed to win the fight, and then Dead Metal slices through Terrorhurtz's baseplate to damage its CO2 valve, which should also gain it some extra points.

However, when I look at this fight, I ignore any potential redeeming factors, because I cannot escape my unshakeable disappointment I experienced when I saw this fight. Going into the episode airing on television, various spoilers floating around the internet had already made me aware of moments in this episode such as Razer falling in the first round, Nuts scraping through to the second round, and Carbide demolishing its way to victory. All I didn't know is who would join Carbide in the Heat Final, but I honestly didn't mind too much, because Behemoth vs Terrorhurtz sounded like a super-ding-dong to determine that position. I couldn't predict a winner of this one beforehand, it sounded extremely close, and promised to be a great fight no matter what... until it happened.

Terrorhurtz dominates the fight, Behemoth wins in a single flip, and then Dead Metal cuts into Terrorhurtz's gas bottle enough to render it unusable, but not far enough to make it explode, the worst level of damage imaginable. Disappointment all around. This result also means that Behemoth broke its unlucky streak and made a Heat Final, having fallen in the second round of Series 5, 6, 7 and 9, with this being the outlier despite Terrorhurtz putting on a much better performance throughout the heat. Nevertheless, Behemoth reaches the Heat Final...

49. Vs Carbide (Series 8, Heat Final)
...to take part in its second-worst fight of the whole show, against Carbide. This one stunk. While Behemoth vs Terrorhurtz was something that excited me prior to the episode airing, I was excited for this one as a result of the episode's build-up. It's true that I would've preferred Terrorhurtz in this position, but the previous encounter between Behemoth and Carbide was fantastic, and with the Round Robin format completely new to all of us, I never could have anticipated how this fight could possibly be bad.

In reality, we soon came to realise that robots entering more fights means that their working condition was gradually going to decrease (who would've thought!), and Behemoth was the first to truly feel the force of that, with Nuts entering its fight against Terrorhurtz relatively intact. Throughout this entire fight, Behemoth did not work. The blows from Carbide were few and far between, with the bar spinner eventually ceasing altogether, Behemoth had no semblance of control for any moment of this bout after the first hit, and eventually they back into the pit in a camera angle which completely mirrors Carbide's actually-good pitting KO from their previous bout. It says a lot when Carbide's Heat Finals against Apollo and Eruption weren't its worst!

48. Vs Elvis (Series 2)
This fight supposedly goes to a Judges' decision somehow, as we do see the countdown clock reach 0, and Elvis is never fully demonstrated to have broken down, but you wouldn't think it from the way the show handled it, the post-interview essentially called it a knockout and took Behemoth's win as something that went without saying. Of course, Behemoth was the obvious winner, but at the same time, it hardly did much to earn it. Let's break down exactly why this fight is a classic case of what went wrong with Series 2.


 * Time where Behemoth was in frame: 37 seconds
 * Time where Elvis is being attacked by the House Robots: 58 seconds

The post-match interview even sees Anthony Pritchard describing his broken pneumatic system to justify why we couldn't see his weapon working... mate, we couldn't see your robot at all!

47. Vs Kat3, Riptilion (Extreme 2, Iron Maidens)
Just two entries ago, I had to put the Carbide vs Behemoth Heat Final very low down, because Behemoth could make no controlled movements for the entire fight. Here, all three of the competing robots were completely uncontrolled! Behemoth was the best-driven robot of the three, and by the second round, Claire Gray seemed to have worked the machine out completely, but this was a slower start, filled with slow plays and driving errors that even Chopper would shake its head at. Kat3 and Riptilion drag the fight down even lower. It feels as though Kat3 was stuck on its side for such a long time, and Riptilion breaks down from so very little, having done nothing in the fight leading up to its KO. Behemoth's performance was solid, but I don't get why they were in this competition AND the University Challenge to begin with!

I doubt this fight truly is in Behemoth's bottom three of all time, but as someone who started watching Robot Wars from the New Blood Final onward, the first episodes I ever managed to RECORD were the Challenge Belt and the Iron Maidens, before Heat A of Series 7 directly followed it on Five the week after. This meant that I watched the Iron Maidens over and over again, and what is probably an inoffensively bad fight gradually becomes one of the worst ever in a young child's brain, saved only by Kat3 spiking Riptilion's armour after it finally got put back on its wheels, and Mr. Psycho's big hammer blow.

It's also a crime that we never got to see Claire Gray vs Clare Greenaway in this tournament.

46. Vs Inquisitor (Series 2)
The plus side: as Series 2 fights go, this one's actually not that bad! The downside: it's a Series 2 fight. There's a case for ranking this fight above some of the following matches, as it's relatively even in the opening stages, with both robots landing non-fatal blows, including some nice little lifts from Behemoth, and a direct spike from Inquisitor. My favourite moment would have to be Sir Killalot pulling Inquisitor's flails off the back of the robot with a delicate flick of his wrist - what were those flails held on with? Even The Tragic Roundabout's flails were more secure than that!

Behemoth lifts Inquisitor up and pushes it into the PPZ fair and square, but that's of course where the fight ends, the House Robots finish the job with Behemoth's involvement finished. An above-average Series 2 fight, but that still doesn't mean a great deal in the long run. Rewatching the episode for the purposes of this list, I had no idea that Inquisitor's team captain was an amateur bodybuilder, but I found it rather funny how often Jonathan Pearce referred to it during Inquisitor's campaign!