User blog:Hogwild94/Top 10 Heat Finals (of the original era)

Hello, and welcome to Hogwild94, where today we are looking at the Top 10 Heat Finals of the original Robot Wars era.

10: Series 1 Heat B, Recyclopse vs Mortis

The only heat final from the first two series to make this list, and by far the best of those two series. TBH, all but three of the heat finals from the first two series were either too short or too one sided, or both. Only three went to the judges: Scarab vs T.R.A.C.I.E. was merely a formality, Napalm vs Demolition Demon was OK, but not very dramatic. This, however, was an all-time classic.

Many years ago, I found a comment on YouTube listing which robots should, on paper, have won each series, and Mortis being down for Series 1 sticks in my mind, and the more I think about it, the righter it sounds. Because, as much as we all love Roadblock, lets face it, had Mortis won this match, and its axe were working, it'd have walked the heat final.

This match should have been a walkover for Mortis: it was up against a robot made out of recycled material, whose only weapon was a decent looking but barely that effective flipping tongue. Yes, I know it flipped Scrapper in the semi-final, but, lets face it, Scrapper's ground clearance was always going to be a problem. Plus, unless I'm mistaken, the flipper didn't actually work, it just charged Scrapper and it somehow rolled over.

But Mortis' axe broke, and thus what should have been a walkover became one of the all-time great matches. Granted, Mortis should probably still have walked the match comfortably. But, in a harbinger of what would happen a year later, Rob Knight was, for some reason, not driving, and that, coupled with the loss of the axe, counted against it. Yes, it got some good aggressive shoves on Recyclopse, and managed to push it around, but it also drove poorly in getting stuck on the arena spikes, and ultimately, in trying to strand Recyclopse on the side bars, got stuck itself.

The judges decision: well, when I first saw the match on The First Great War VHS many years ago, my initial response was that it wasn't as bad a decision as I had read beforehand in many a book. TBH, I'd probably have still given it to Mortis, but those bad bits of driving did sort of count against it.

But nonetheless, a great match, and a worthy start to this list.

9: Series 4 Heat K, Little Fly vs Mousetrap

OK, maybe I'm a bit biased in putting this one on the list, but this was one of only two Series 4 heats I taped, and thus, I watched it many times.

Ideally, the heat final would be between the two best robots in the heat. On this occasion though, lets be frank, it was the two weakest robots of the heat that ended up competing in the heat final. In fact, I'm tempted to say both were set up to fall in the first round.

Well, maybe not Little Fly; its armour may have been poor and the speed slow, but the blade looked half decent enough for its time. Sumpthing had lasted mere seconds in the last series, and given how it was practically the same robot as last series, was probably expected to go the same way.

Mousetrap certainly shouldn't have made it through the first round. It was up against two fierce looking axes, including a semi-finalist from the previous series built by a previous Robot Wars winner, and another built by a future Robot Wars winner. (Yep, that's my tip for Sunday!) But Evil Weevil and Weld-Dor both broke down, and thus, all three made it through to the second round.

Oh yeah, Little Fly actually killed Weld-Dor! Now it certainly proved itself a worthy finalist then, even if it probably should've lost to Tiberius. And Mousetrap should probably have lost to Sumpthing as well. Wow, I've just realised we could've had a Tiberius-Sumpthing heat final. Now THAT I cannot call at all!

Instead, we got what looked like on paper a sub par fight between two robots that should probably have lost in both the second round and made it through on the back of their more impressive opponents breaking down. I think Headbanger/Hardcore Kid said something to the extent of "both these robots are pretty rubbish, a weak spinner and a weak trap device" on my friend psykokiller666's upload of the fight.

And yet, if you watch that fight, it's actually a pretty engaging and engrossing fight, with two meh robots going all out at each other, and going the distance all the way to a judges decision, something all-stars Razer, Mortis and Gemini failed to do in the same series. Little Fly won damage, Mousetrap won aggression, and the other two were far too close to call.

I've seen many say Little Fly were robbed, pointing out that Mousetrap's breakdown in the semi-finals was largely due to damage sustained in this heat final. There's maybe some truth in that, and no doubt if the judges had the benefit of foresight, they probably would have given Little Fly the win.

I've heard somewhere, either on here or on YouTube, that Little Fly tried to return for Series 5, more or less the same but painted black, but failed to qualify. (If someone could confirm that for sure) But, as much as I like it, I'm glad it didn't return; Series 5 would've been tough on it, and it would've soured the memories of a gallant little one series wonder that did far better than most would've dared think it could do.

It and its opponent gave us a much better fight than they could possibly have been expected to do given their flukey second round victories, even if Little Fly had KOed a seed in the process, and, for that reason alone, they get on the list, albeit low-ish down.

to be continued