User blog:Toon Ganondorf/Ultimate Countdown Review Blog

For the past few weeks I've been enthralled with self-teaching myself some video editing skills, which you might see on the next few episodes of the Robot Wars History podcast, as well as my directorial debut, The Ballad of Oluremi Idris.

My most ambitious project after cutting my teeth on my own JP Recap, was to compile all 100 fights of User:NJGW's Ultimate Countdown into a "supercut", a condensed video rather than playing all the fights in their entirety. This is the format I insisted Nick do from day 1, though I now realise what a project it was, it would probably unfair of me to insist.

Nonetheless, it is now uploaded, and in the process of trying to condense all 100 fights, I've revisited them in great detail. I also re-listened to the podcasts I did with Nick and Toast in the aftermath (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3), reread the comments sections of Nick's blog and realised that nearly 18 months on, I would like to see where my opinions have settled.

To start off, I want to once again commend Nick for this project. It's given us hours of enjoyment and debate and whilst no list would ever be perfect, this one is pretty darn terrific as a piece. Any critiques I will make will be of the fights themselves and how I feel they should place in the ranking, but it is not intended to critique Nick or his project, because I now realise how much work went into the darn thing.

My goal will be to comment on all 100, comment on whether they're too high, too low, or right where they are.  Toon Ganondorf    (t    c) 

100. Panic Attack v Cassius
The first title fight to appear on the list and one that seems to exist purely to represent Series 2, who otherwise would not have been represented on the list at all. I agree with Nick in that 100-90 is for iconic fights that are not the best in quality. What I do not agree with is the understanding that this fight is here purely for that reason. The Series 2 title fight is a neat little bout, well seated at 100th place. There's a lot less to the fight than I remember - the ramping attack, the Dead Metal shove and the pitting are the three story beats and everything else is just filler. However, all three are memorable moments especially for this point in time. Compare the ramping attack to Roadblock's trundling attacks on Recyclopse and Robot the Bruce a year prior and while is may not seem that exciting today, it was big for that point in time. The Dead Metal push shows that Cassius was strong enough to hoist the second biggest House bot and got enough leverage to almost overturn it. And the pitting is by far the sweetest of the three KO grand finals we got in Robot Wars history.

Also helping this fight are the facts that this was an upset (always a plus), a title fight (almost always a plus) and the joy from Craig, Rex, Kim and all the others. Its infectious and I would miss this fight if a Version 2.0 dropped it for a more enjoyable fight with lower stakes.

Verdict: Correct

99. Chaos 2 v Firestorm


First of all, I refuse to subscribe to the ludicrous and unprovable theory that Firestorm broke down in the 2 seconds it was sitting still. To subscribe to that is to actively seek to ruin the show for yourself. This is the first fight on the list I remember seeing for the first time and it was a real doozy. The energy from the JP commentary and George Francis' reaction are delightful and it was a reminder how far ahead Chaos 2 was, even over Firestorm who was no slouch by any means.

The fight is incredibly short, and I don't believe that should hold it back, but an OOTA can't carry the whole fight into the upper echelons. Toast commented on our review podcast that it could miss altogether, but again, I would miss this fight - the first OOTA - if we replaced it with a longer Chaos 2 fight, like the Series 6 melee I so adore, or one of the dominant clashes in Extreme. It fits perfectly in this range.

Verdict: Correct

98. Wheely Big Cheese v Axe-Awe


As I've touched on, the 100-91 range was for iconic fights too short to be considered the top 100, and for the most part, I agree. However, this one I've come to believe has been an unfair victim of that rule. Nick originally intended the Top 100 to be purely for close fights and very few curbstomps (Hypno-Disc v Splinter aside) qualified far beyond the 89 mark.

In hindsight, when considering what makes a great fight, sometimes it doesn't have to be close. Wheely Big Cheese v Axe Awe gave us something we'd never seen before and wouldn't see again under Apollo and Big Nipper blasted far, far lighter robots out of the arena in Series 10. Do I understand the logic? Absolutely. However, this moment is so incredibly iconic and still impressive that it feels arbitrary keeping it this low. Wheely Big Cheese is an iconic machine and this is by far its most famous win, and it hurts to have this fight below Apex v Track-tion in particular, considering that the Apexplosion didn't even result in a win for the most memorable robot in that fight. It also doesn't deserve to be diminished like Diotoir v Tornado because there's no basis for thinking Axe-Awe had broken down, nor does that particularly matter. It also hurts that Roger Plant gave us one of the best fights of Series 3 and 5 respectively, and he's earned a single 98th place for his efforts.

Where would I put it? I don't want to rewrite the list as that's an impossible feat, but I think its comfortably in the top 30, but for now I'll just say that I think it should be higher.

Verdict: Too low

97. Firestorm v Panic Attack
Not much to say about this one because it is one step off having the title read Firestorm v "Panic Attack". This fight is here for the Mr. Psycho flip and deservingly so. How would this fight fare if the Psycho flip happened in the fight that gave Firestorm their trophy? Probably bump it up another 10 spots even for me, whose gone relatively cold on Firestorm in the last 10 years. It triumphing over Panic Attack is almost nothing new and whilst it doesn't hurt the fight, it doesn't help it.

Verdict: Correct