Hard Cheese

"A wedge shaped, cheese robot"

- Jonathan Pearce

Hard Cheese was a middleweight robot that has appeared in the first three Middleweight Championships of Robot Wars. It featured a spinning stainless steel disc on its back in Extreme Series 1, a pickaxe in Series 3 and in Series 2 it had large spikes sticking out of its back, and it preferred to drive into robots forward rather than backwards where they would hit the weaponry as it was a wedge shaped robot capable of shoving other robots around, but had no self-righting mechanism. The machine always competed with a fake rat on top of it, named Verminator. In Series 2, it easily won the middleweight championship. In Series 3, it returned as the reigning champion only to be knocked out after being pushed, crushed, twisted, tormented, pierced and bullied by Sir Killalot. In Extreme Series 1, it returned for the Middleweight Melee and finished a respectable but unofficial second place after it was knocked out and immobilised after just a few blows from Typhoon, although it did last longer than all of the other competitors in the battle, excluding Typhoon.

Team Liverdyne Robotics also entered the main competition of The Fifth Wars with V.I.P.E.R. 01, which was no-where near as successful as Hard Cheese, going out in the first round. V.I.P.E.R. 01 also failed to qualify for the Fourth Wars main competition.

Series 2
"Do I smell a rat?"

- Jonathan Pearce points out Verminator

The Series 2 Middleweight Championship was only one straight forward battle. As well as the Featherweight battle and the Lightweight battle only around ten seconds of this fight was actually broadcast. However, Hard Cheese was constantly ramming its two opponents, Wharthog and Doodlebug, using its classic wedge shape to help with the pushing. Hard Cheese seemed much more active than the other two competitors throughout. Doodlebug broke down fairly early on, and was later assaulted by the House Robots. Wharthog failed to be able to turn around to stop Hard Cheese hacking away at it and eventually stopped after taking a lot of punishment from Hard Cheese. After Hard Cheese's opponents had been declared as out, Hard Cheese partially took on the House Robots. Dead Metal then stormed in and forced Verminator to fall off the wedge and was then placed on the flame pit and burnt by Shunt. This was enough for Hard Cheese to become the first official Middleweight Champion. Despite the vast cruelty it had suffered, Verminator was rescued and heavily bandaged up afterwards. "Yes, we burn just about everything on Robot Wars!"

- Jonathan Pearce, as Verminator is pushed onto the flame pit

Series 3
"Hardly mousing"

- Jonathan Pearce, on the team

Hard Cheese returned to defend its title of Middleweight Champion in the following series, armed with a new spiked hammer, replacing the large spikes. Hard Cheese was placed up against the middleweight version of A-Kill, newcomers Grinder, the return of Ripper's Revenge and American entrants Tentomushi. In the battle, Hard Cheese started by attacking Ripper's Revenge, and then steered away from the blood-thirsty American robot Tentomushi. Hard Cheese then started to thump its axe onto A-Kill but was then covered up by Tentomushi who'd targeted Hard Cheese right from the start. Tentomushi retreated and covered Ripper's Revenge, this caused Verminator to fall off. But Hard Cheese had stopped moving, it could only flail its axe in the air, due to the foil on the underside of Tentomushi disrupting its radio signal. Hard Cheese was then picked up by Sir Killalot, twisted around by the lance. Then Sir Killalot placed Hard Cheese down and pushed it over to the flame pit, Sir Killalot then started to drive over the immobilised robot with his tracks, before he finally left Hard Cheese alone, but even still remarkably staying in one piece after Sir Killalot's repeated attacks. This resulted in Hard Cheese being eliminated from the competition, thus losing its Middleweight Champion status. "Let's have a toast, to Hard Cheese"

- Jonathan Pearce, as Hard Cheese lies on the flame pit

Extreme 1
"We've seen Hard Cheese before, Sir Killalot didn't like it."

- Jonathan Pearce as Hard Cheese enters the arena

Hard Cheese was upgraded again for this tournament, with a small cutting disc replacing its hammer weapon. Hard Cheese entered the Middleweight Championship in Extreme Series 1 and was placed up against the Edinburgh Air Cadets' Typhoon, Welsh entrants Genesis, the walkerbot Mammoth, Zap of the Beef-Cake team and the first incarnation of Doom. Hard Cheese stayed out of the main action at the start of the battle, whilst Typhoon spun around doing minor damage to most of the other competitors, until it managed to break one of Mammoth's legs clean off. Hard Cheese then attacked Genesis, ramming it across a short distance, before Typhoon came in and spun Genesis away. Typhoon hit Hard Cheese, failing to knock it away quickly, unlike the others. Hard Cheese was then attempted to cut into Typhoon using its saw, only causing a few scratches on Typhoon's shell, but then Hard Cheese was sent spinning away. Hard Cheese was still moving, unlike the other competitors (excluding Typhoon), but was only driving in circles. Genesis was counted out by the Refbot and flipped by the arena floor flipper. Mammoth and Zap then suffered the same fate. Hard Cheese had eventually ran out of steam and completely broken down, right after Doom. Then both Hard Cheese and Doom were flung by the arena floor flipper and onto its back, making Typhoon the only middleweight competitor still mobile and the subsequent winner of the Middleweight Championship. This was Hard Cheese's last performance in Robot Wars. "Now Hard Cheese, and Doom"

- Jonathan Pearce names the next two robots to be flipped by the flipper

Results

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Wins/Losses

 * Wins: 1
 * Losses: 2

Series Record

 * Series 1: Did not enter
 * Series 2: Middleweight Champion
 * Series 3: Middleweight Melee
 * Series 4: Failed to qualify with V.I.P.E.R. 01
 * Series 5: Entered with V.I.P.E.R. 01
 * Series 6-7: Did not enter

Trivia

 * Hard Cheese was the only middleweight in Robot Wars history to feature a hammer weapon.
 * Excluding the Series 2 Middleweight Championship, where it was a newcomer at the time, Hard Cheese, when it featured in the Middleweight Championships, was always the only robot in the Championship with any Middleweight experience.