User blog:Toon Ganondorf/Robot Wars Forgeta-bouts

Do you ever find yourself casting back through tournaments, scrounging up content on Robot Wars to pose fresh questions, only to realise that there's some fights you can't put your finger on. There are just some that you forget about.

Forget a bout. Ha ha ha.

Anyway, this blog sprung off the back of NJGW's blog on forgettable robots. Now we're doing forgettable battles - the fights that you just don't remember ever took place. Whether you're calling on it up to cast an arena vote to your disbelieving fellows, or fighting to remember who Concussion defeated to reach the heat final of Series 10, these are the fights that come hardest to mind.

Nick, Toast and I will be joined by a number of different guests as we cast our votes, with Robot Wars History Podcast panelists Luke, Theo and the Ginger Beaver, Wikian User:O Raz3r O, and even Mystrsyko from YouTube casting their votes in this exciting tournament.

As with bots, each fight will amass a number of votes, and the majority recipient is bolded. Other vote getters will be italicised At the end of each series, our group voted a bottom 3 (Series 1-2, 8-10) or bottom 5 (Series 3-7) and the fight deemed most forgettable of the series is praised in ALL CAPS BOLD ITALICS.

We're working in reverse order this time, in order to drum up the readership now. Series 10 is freshest in our memories, but its surprising that there are a handful of fights that we've already forgotten about, or are certain will fade from our memories as time goes by.

At the time of publishing, Series 1-5, Extreme 1, and Series 9-10 have all been cast. If you want to take part in the voting for Series 6, 7, 8 and Extreme 2, drop us a line.

Series 10

 * Heat A: Heat A had a real disparity here. None of the Apollo fights were contenders, whether it was the two OOTAs or the all-time classic heat final. Nick and Toast did feel that the fight before the OOTA with Sabretooth was on the lower end, whilst I felt the same about Behemoth v The Swarm. Aside from Behemoth disposing of Skye, I can't picture anything else from the fight. However, Toast and Nick hadn't overanalysed the Series 10 trailer like I had, so the flying floor spikes couldn't cement themselves as a Series 10 staple. As such, our loser for Heat A was another fight for THe Swarm - against Sabretooth.
 * Heat B: Another wealthy heat, and it was clearly not going to be the two melees or the clash between Big Nipper and Crackers 'n' Smash. There was a vote raised for Aftershock v Carbide, a decision I couldn't agree with even though I understood the logic - a Series 9 rematch that had the same outcome but did not feed into Eruption's championship narrative, nor feature the same level of destruction. However, the correct choice was ultimately made with Big Nipper v Eruption, a judges decision that had little impact on either robot and went pretty much exactly as expected.
 * Heat C: I felt very strongly that the two Trak-tion OOTAs blurred into one, with the latter being the one I remembered. Rapid vs Bucky the Robot vs Trak-tion was a fight I genuinely gloss over when remembering Series 10, especially trying to picture a clash between the former two. I was outvoted, however, by a coalition aimed at forgetting Bucky the Robot's other fight. Yes, our boy Toast actually set aside his rose-coloured Vulture goggles to declared its only victory (Vulture v Bucky the Robot) the most forgettable of Heat C.
 * Heat D: This was by far the easiest choice. Iron-Awe 6's never working flipper, inexcusable victory in the first round and rather dull bout against a barely working Androne 4000 makes it a robot that you want to forget. Who can say whether it failed to work three times or four in Series 10? Concussion on the other hand, feels unusual to have lost in the first melee when every other all-star bar Aftershock was successful. Concussion's disintegration of The Kegs is memorable enough to fit into its 1-2-3 progression of fights, but what makes this difficult is trying to name what took place after it was done with The Kegs (sounds like most nights out, hey?). By unanimous vote and almost universal acclaim, the votes went to Iron-Awe 6 v Concussion.
 * Heat E: A dreadful selection of fights but only some that were truly forgettable. Who can forget the sheer frustration of Expulsion's feeble victory over Coyote, or its pitiful faceplant against Push to Exit? The heat final might be overrated by NJGW's Ultimate Countdown, but it was the best of the episode and that makes it worth remembering. Magnetar booting Expulsion like a football was one of Series 10's most memorable action shots. The Hobgoblin fight saw Shunt's axe break apart, and the Push to Exit KO on Hobgoblin was a staple of the Series 10 trailer. We really had two choices, both featuring Thor v Coyote. Both could have been eligible, but we decided on the head to head, because Expulsion's rather pathetic faceplant at least sets that one aside.
 * Grand Final: This one was a technicality, as the episode is objectively one of the best of all time and contains four all time classics in the space of seven fights. Only Magnetar v Behemoth and the two semi-finals don't meet the register, and the former is elimianted by the sheer frustration many felt at Magnetar's elimination/the elimination of the only robot that could prevent a Carbide/Eruption final. The two choices were therefore Eruption v Behemoth - a fight I groaned about as soon as I saw the lineup, watched with glazed eyes, and felt the memory dribble out of my ear like a bit of pool water - and Carbide v Nuts - a rather sad rematch that tainted the first melee and blended with the Series 8 bout. I was outvoted in the end.
 * World Series Heat A: It could not be Cobra v Sabretooth or Rabid M8 v Gabriel, for the victory of Team ROTW was so rare that they could not be forgotten. TMHWK and Terrorhurtz was a bit of fun and the whole narrative with the axe played through the episode, meaning it couldn't be cut without you wondering where it was. This left the two melees, and came down to simple deduction. The first melee had a House Robot flip in a fight that went the full five minutes, whilst the second had about 3 blows and was over before you could say "Rabid M8". Is very easy to forget Rabid M8 has two combat fights, but our unanimous choice was Rabid M8/Diotoir v Terrorhurtz/Sabretooth.
 * World Series Heat B: One of the worst episodes of the entire reboot, but certainly full of a few memorable fights. Whether it was Big Nipper going up like Mount Vesuvius, or the controversy of Concussion's snipe on Cathadh, the terrible episode had moments that made me pay attention. Somewhat surprisingly, I was outvoted in selecting Concussion v Weber. Nick and Toast instead opted for the very last fight Robot Wars ever got - Eruption v Cathadh, and what a choice it was. Unlike Storm 2 v Supernova, this really wasn't a fight to go out on, and it certainly isn't being talked about the way Series 7's closer was. I wonder if Michael Oates is busy printing "Robot Wars World Series Champion - joint with Concussion, Thor and Big Nipper and won via a fight that was irrelevant as our team had already scored almost every point in the episode" on the side of his robot?
 * TOTAL: We made a choice to include World Series since it feature robots who were in the main competition. All fights to collect a vote were eligible. First place collected 3 votes, second collected two, and third place collected one.
 * ERUPTION v CATHADH – 7 votes
 * Concussion v Weber – 6 votes
 * Coyote v Thor – 4 vote
 * Vulture v Bucky the Robot – 3 votes
 * Terrorhurtz/Sabretooth v Rabid M8/Diotoir – 3 votes
 * Behemoth v The Swarm – 2 votes