User blog:CrashBash/Top 105 Heat Finals

There is a lot to enjoy about Robot Wars. There's some awesome fights and some great robots that you can't help but cheer on. When you get strong robots in strong fights, that's just icing on the cake. These are the fights that Robot Wars needs...and in an ideal world, they should start occurring right from the get-go, but realistically, as long as the best two robots are in the last battle of the show, I'm happy.

Of all the battles in Robot Wars, the most important is certainly the Grand Final itself, but arguably the next important is the one battle that will determine which one of two robots will make it through to the elite-shortlist, whether that list is six, twelve or sixteen robots long - the heat final. And why wouldn't it be? It's the closing fight of any given standard episode so you'd like to think an episode would go out with a bang. The rest of the heat could drag on really badly, but as long as the final battle is good, it's all worth it, right? Conversely, a bad heat final could potentially put a damper on an otherwise strong heat. Basically, there's a lot of ways a heat final could be good or bad, so much so that simply ranking them from best to worst isn't as simple as just picking favourites - I needed a proper system.

In total, there are 105 heats across the ten series of UK Robot Wars, and I will be ranking the finals of every single one of them. For this, I decided to base my decision across six different criteria.
 * How much damage was caused, relative to the series and what the robots could do.
 * How aggressive the robots were being overall, if they were committing to each other.
 * How well the battle was paced.
 * How well both robots, specifically both, performed. Heat Finals were both robots performed well score better than ones where only one performed well.
 * How close the fight was, since the best fights are arguably the closest ones.
 * How enjoyable overall the fight was overall.

That being said, this alone wasn't enough to separate many fights, so I also distributed bonus ranks. A heat final could score higher if...
 * The winner performed a really solid or otherwise impressive knockout.
 * The eventual winner put on a dominant performance, since sometimes even a one-sided battle could be fun.
 * Something completely unexpected happened during the fight.
 * The fight was overall very dramatic, with the fight going back and forth or a surprise turnabout got pulled off.
 * The battle was over quickly, which I feel is quite impressive really.

Conversely, a heat final could score lower if...
 * The battle felt like a complete formality, with it being blatantly clear one robot was going to win.
 * The losing robot broke down, the earlier the worse it is.
 * The battle was decided by a house robot or an arena hazard, rather than the opponent.
 * The battle was slow and dragged on a bit too long.
 * The outcome of the battle felt dubious.

It may not be a full-proof scoring method, but it worked surprisingly well and has given me some very surprising results. The most important factor here is that everything is relative, in an attempt to put fights on equal footing. But not too equal....after all, someone's got to actually win.

Number 105
I must stress that, for the bottom few entries, don't expect a massive write-up. It's just not going to happen.

So, to the surprise of absolutely nobody, Evil Weevil vs Panzer is not only the worst Heat Final of Series 3, but of Robot Wars' entire history. I'm not even sure it can be considered a "fight" because, technically, it isn't one. The Panzer team were "happy with their robot" right before entering the arena and yet it didn't function at all. Evil Weevil wasn't exactly looking stellar at all, but that doesn't matter because you don't gain points for simply moving. Given all the issues with Series 3, it does make you wonder exactly what happened with Panzer. I'm starting to have many suspicions....

Number 104
So Evil Weevil vs Panzer was obviously on everyone's mind as the absolute worst heat final, but it wasn't the only heat final where one of the competitors didn't work. Sorry beetle-tank fight, but Roadblock vs Onslaught was doing it before it was cool. In this case, Onslaught was just plonked into the middle of the arena and it never moved. Thus giving Roadblock a free win after, just minutes earlier, it looked like it would crash out in the Trial.

Somehow, though, this "fight", by and far the worst of Series 2, is technically better than the previous one for one reason and one reason only - it doesn't drag. Evil Weevil vs Panzer spent several minutes waiting for something to happen, which almost didn't occur until Evil Weevil gave Panzer a nudge. Here, the fight ends relatively soon after TPTB realise Onslaught is dead, I assume in part because Roadblock was attempting to attack it. That's the only real plus I can give it, though, because even Roadblock's attack on the House Robots wasn't that impressive even for its time.

I guess Onslaught catching fire was pretty cool, though.....

Number 103
Completing the trio of heat finals where only one robot was actually mobile is a battle where the loser was technically able to move, but lets be honest here, it was by-the-rules immobile and it was never going to win.

Jonathan Pearce famously described Hypno-Disc vs Raizer Blade, Series 4's worst heat final, as the equivalent of putting the heavyweight boxing champion against his grandmother. It's a fair assessment - the poor boxing champion would never stand a chance! - but I can only commend bravery for so much before suspension of disbelief takes over. Like, there's NO way that Raizer Blade is at any point in the fight fully mobile. This leads to the biggest problem with the final - it's a formality, and because Raizer Blade is so badly crippled and Hypno-Disc knows this, it's not even an enjoyable formality. It's really only scoring higher because Raizer Blade could sort of move.

Yes, I can sympathise with everything Raizer Blade went through. Doesn't mean it isn't a terrible battle, though.

Number 102
To clarify some details here, my scoring system, which I may or may not end up sharing on this blog, meant that there would be fights with minus scores. I fully expected the previous three battles to get minus scores, but in total, four battles got that "honour". Believe me, I'm as stunned as you are.

As an exhibition, Chaos 2 vs Atomic is pretty decent. Chaos 2 bossed Atomic around, throwing it effortlessly and we got some nice crumpling by Sir Killalot to go with it. But I'm not ranking these based on them being exhibitions, I'm ranking them as fights. And as a fight, it suffered from three major problems -
 * 1) It was a formality. This was the very first distinct "champion's sacrificial heat", and arguably the weakest of the lot. None of the other robots were ever going to challenge Chaos 2, and watching it again made me think that perhaps the reboot had the better idea overall.
 * 2) Atomic died on the first flip. The robot simply cannot function the moment someone inverts it. This would be bad enough, but then....
 * 3) The fight, which was already over, dragged on. Atomic was already out, but we had to watch Chaos 2 fruitlessly attempt to throw it out of the arena for another minute or so before anyone came in. If Chaos 2 HAD got it out, I would have been more forgiving. As it was....no.

I am admittedly surprised that there was another minus fight alongside the three no-starters - I'm not surprised it was this one.

Number 101
The next four entries ended up tying for points - or rather "point", as they all ended up scoring just one single point overall. Spoiler alert, three of them were all over after only one attack which is never normally a good thing. So I think it speaks volumes when Trident vs Dreadnaut is worse than they are.

The final heat of Series 3 was already pretty dire as it was, but Trident's other two wins were pretty fun all the same. The heat final, however, was a slow, ponderous affair where Trident was clearly the stronger but could barely show that. What follows is about a minute or so of Trident pushing Dreadnaut around just knocking it with its axe until, and the following moments REALLY hurt this fight's score, BOTH robots end up breaking down. However, instead of attacking both robots, or the robot who was announced as immobile first, the House Robots instead decided to attack Trident. This legit left me very confused when I first watched it.

It's a good job Jonathan Pearce was there to confirm that, yes, Dreadnaut was immobilised first. You could have fooled me....

Number 100
There's one thing I quickly noticed upon rewatching all these fights again - Series 9 had terrible heat finals. On average, it had the worst heat finals out of any series, almost certainly due to how the Round Robin format worked, and TWO fights share the bottom spot for the worst of the series. But frankly, I feel Ironside3 vs Pulsar is worse overall.

For one of the biggest rivalries of the reboot, none of Ironside and Pulsar's head-to-head clashes (and I mean specifically head-to-head) have been very good. This fight doesn't have any controversy to it like the previous two, but it's still pretty bad. The fact of the matter is, Pulsar dies in just one blow, having suffered all sorts of reliability issues throughout its heat, as one would firmly expect from Pulsar and Ironside just knocks it out in a single blow. It's not a dramatic blow, and then afterwards, there's a large amount of nothingness, as if waiting for the judges to wake up and count Pulsar out. Ironside gets a few more hits in, but it isn't flashy or anything.

I mean, after their previous fight, I get why things happened as they did, but that doesn't make it alright.

Number 99
The same issue applies to Spawn of Scutter vs Knightmare, but arguably not as much. It's another fight where the loser ends up just dying after one attack, and it's somewhat worse by the fact that Knightmare looked to have died before Spawn of Scutter launched its first real attack. Honestly, the reasons I ended up ranking it above the Ironside-Pulsar fight are petty at best, but I'll go through them anyway.

First of all, the robots themselves. With Ironside and Pulsar, it was blatantly clear that whilst Ironside was running decently, Pulsar was not. When everything is considered, it should have been clear that Pulsar would lose pretty badly. With Spawn and Knightmare, however, Knightmare's breakdown was completely out of nowhere - it was still running just fine and whilst I'm positive Spawn would have won anyway, I'd imagine a clash between it and a fully-functioning Knightmare would have otherwise being a tactical romp with Knightmare getting some solid pushes in, but Spawn dominating otherwise. This makes the subsequent immediate breakdown a major disappointment, hence of course why it's so low, but I'll take a dull disappointment over a dull formality.

The more significant reason, there was no drag. As soon as it was clear Knightmare was immobile, the House Robots came straight in. No delay, no nothing. They just came in and laid into Knightmare - this was still the series where the House Robots could probably get away with excessive damage to downed competitors. All in all, terrible, yes - but I'd rather watch this over Ironside vs Pulsar.

Number 98
If you ask me personally, Aftershock vs Sabretooth is the perfect display of why virtually all of Series 9's heat finals were terrible. It's better than the previous two since there's at least a really dramatic attacking blow on Aftershock's part and it isn't simply a limp breakdown, but it's still rubbish.

The first major problem is quite simply, we've seen it before. This affected almost every single one of the heat finals of Series 9 and Series 8 for that matter, since the Round Robin format basically meant that the two heat finalists had already previously fought. And in the case of Aftershock vs Sabretooth, that really hinders it. This is in part because the first battle between the two was a glorious destruction fest on Aftershock's part, tearing Sabretooth into little itty-bitty pieces. You thought Carbide's destruction of Nuts the season prior was something? This is more along the lines of Hypno-Disc vs Splinter. It's a destructive way to go out.

And thereby lies not only one of the major reasons why this heat final is terrible, but also one of the Round Robin format's biggest problems - Sabretooth doesn't go out. Team Legion are literally forced to throw the robot back together and keep fighting, even though they clearly can't. It's a dead robot rolling LONG before it fights with Aftershock again, and was never going to beat it, thus rendering the heat final and formality. And because of this, one admittedly very flashy blow is all it takes to put Sabretooth out. Really, I think Team Shock should have saved the destruction fest for this round. Would have put it much higher otherwise.

Number 97
Speaking of "one admittedly very flashy blow"...

So we've established that Series 9 had some terrible heat finals. Series 8's were not really that much better, again largely crippled by the fact that these were battles we'd already seen. Carbide vs Behemoth is the worst of this series heat finals, again hampered by the fact the two had a far better, far more destructive battle earlier, with some extremely flashy damage to Behemoth to boot.

Here? Carbide lands one or two admittedly very good hits and then the whole fight just slows down to a minimalist crawl. Behemoth can no longer function properly, Carbide is clearly unwilling to fight at full power anymore since it's clearly done enough and thus, for the longest time, very little happens until Behemoth drives itself into the pit, after what felt like a minute since it was crippled. Considering this was the first episode of Robot Wars' amazing but short-lived reboot, this was a let down.

Number 96
I just realised I have three series openers in a row. This may be a controversial call - Series 5's opening heat final, when you glance at it overall, is reasonably decent. It's clearly a formality, but it's still a solid dominant showing and a solid knockout. But it's the broader picture that makes Chaos 2 vs S.M.I.D.S.Y. the worst of Series 5's heat finals and, no matter how you look at it, frustrating to watch.

I'd heard beforehand that Chaos 2 vs S.M.I.D.S.Y. did actually go to a rematch after "both robots were immobilised at the same time" and, honestly, I had the mental image of both killing each other at the same time much like Behemoth and Sabretooth would do years later - S.M.I.D.S.Y. managing to disable Chaos 2's drive, but in doing so getting flipped by Chaos 2 and the impact knocks out its link, perhaps. But we don't get that. Instead, we get Chaos 2 dominating S.M.I.D.S.Y., throwing it against the arena wall, flipping itself over trying to get it out and being unable to right itself due to damage it took...except now, both robots are not immobilised.

Or are they? I don't know! Of all the things Robot Wars were consistent on, whether or not a robot that was stuck on the arena wall was considered immobile was NOT one of them. In a good deal of the fights, a robot stuck this way was knocked off by the House Robots. But in others, such as here, the stuck robot is simply left there. Considering S.M.I.D.S.Y. was clearly still showing itself to be operational and was trying to get off, I would have thought that would have warranted the House Robots knocking it down and seeing if it was still mobile...but look, Chaos 2 is stuck upside down, we can't have that! This legit felt like very deliberate action on someone's part, not going to say who, to keep Chaos 2 in the competition. Especially since S.M.I.D.S.Y. was able to free itself eventually....really, if you wanted to argue that S.M.I.D.S.Y. was immobilised, then arguably the rematch shouldn't have happened anyway because S.M.I.D.S.Y. was clearly immobilised before Chaos 2 mucked itself up, but then.....GAH! This battle is frustrating on so many levels it's hard to watch.

Oh, and in the rematch, S.M.I.D.S.Y. breaks down after a few flips. That also doesn't help.

Number 95
Out of all the series of Robot Wars, Series 6 is probably my favourite overall. It had some really good robots, solid fights, the robots that weren't as good were generally quite fun and honestly, I feel it had the best atmosphere of all the series. Unfortunately, it's not immune to some dud fights and some of the weakest fights were, sadly, heat finals. You may though be wondering, is Hypno-Disc vs Barber-Ous 2 really the worst of the series? To be honest, I'm not sure myself.

On the one hand, it's a very quick fight that appears to end in a swift knockout, something I do end up giving a fight points for. On the other hand, considering what happened when they fought earlier, it felt like a formality, something I willingly deduct points for. The problem for me, however, is the knockout blow itself. It would certainly be a solid blow if it was Hypno-Disc causing the blow...except I'm not even sure if it was Hypno-Disc that caused the blow. Both robots' spinning weapons make contact and then Barber-Ous just dies. The problem, however, is that from the angle we saw, it legit looked like it was Barber-Ous, not Hypno-Disc, that was instigating the attack. If that was truly the case, then that makes the fight even worse because then it's a case of Barber-Ous breaking down after just a few seconds of fighting, which is never enjoyable.

This is honestly the safest place I feel I can put the fight for now. It could be much higher, it could be much lower. But with such a debatable situation as this, it'll have to settle for 95. Also, there was a lot of dead space between when Barber-Ous stopped working and when it was counted out - which never helps.

Number 94
I listed Hypno-Disc vs Barber-Ous as the worst of Series 6' heat finals in the previous entry, but I'm fairly sure most people were expecting me to rank Spawn Again vs Supernova in that place instead. Trust me, I'm surprised too. Surprised, disappointed and just a little frustrated.

Personal bias is not why I ranked it this, low. It's simply a case of two robots not working how they should be. Spawn Again had been pretty much crippled right from the start of the heat and seemingly hadn't done anything to improve its reliability issues since way back in Extreme 1, whereas Supernova was looking stronger than it ever had done. Apparently, the official autopsy of Supernova states that the first flip Spawn Again gave it wrecked one of its drives, rendering it unable to move. That's all well and good, but....when exactly was this? That tiny little flip right at the start? It can't have been that bigger flip that got Supernova stuck against the angle grinder, because it's clearly having mobility problems before then, but if it was that tiny little flip, that's not exactly the sort of flip your drive motors should die on. That's the sort of thing the original Atomic would stop working from. That's still a major disappointment.

I can barely give Spawn Again any credit either, because somehow Supernova still managed to cripple it despite being dead. Once again, there was an age before Refbot came to count Supernova out, despite there being effectively two dead robots in the arena and it just ended with the objectively weaker robot going through. Could be worse, I guess....

Number 93
This could potentially be the shortest description yet, because I legit have NOTHING to say about Concussion vs Thor. Most of the problems it has have been summed up with the other reboot heat finals I've mentioned before - we already saw a better fight between the two earlier in the heat, at least one of them wasn't working to its full potential, y'know, the obvious. I'll give Thor credit for hanging on to a judges' decision, but the main reason it's ranked this low? Despite having moments near identical to their previous encounter, this fight was boring!. I legit could not remember anything that happened in it until I rewatched it for scoring, only that Concussion won. Deserved, yes, but a boring battle is not one you want to work with here.

Number 92
After Series 9 ended up having lacklustre heat final after lacklustre heat final, TPTB realised they needed to spice things up for Series 10, specifically to limit repeat performances. It worked, too. There were no longer instances of "we've already seen this" and the heat finals improved - to a degree. Three of them were amongst the best fights Robot Wars has had. The other two were kind of a mess - and of those two, Nuts 2 vs Concussion was the worst of that series.

The problem here is there really isn't much of a fight. Concussion drives into the spinning Nuts, manages to evade taking too much damage from its flails, but then drives over the floor flipper for no reason. It manages to survive that, only to drive back over it again....for no reason. The entire rest of the "fight" is just Concussion spinning around on its side trying to get the right way up because the wheel guards it added specifically to prevent Nuts from damaging its wheels hinder its ability to run inverted and it ultimately goes on for much too long even when it's clear Concussion is out of the fight. The problem isn't the fact it's technically a repeat because there's no Androne 4000 this time, the problem is nothing happens for a long period of time, which as you may guess, I don't like in a heat final.

Man, Concussion really does badly in heat finals, it seems....

Number 91
There are many fights in Robot Wars' history that could be considered "dubious". I won't name them all, but I will say that often fights we claim are dubious don't actually fall into that category. Nevertheless, watching all the heat finals, I found three fights in total that I considered to be dubious, with no way to excuse it. I've already covered Chaos 2 vs S.M.I.D.S.Y., but we're going to have to go back all the way to the first series to cover the next.

Shame too, because honestly, Bodyhammer vs REALI-T had started off so well. For a Series 1 fight, it was actually quite a lively encounter, both were pushing each other around, both were actively engaging, both were being rather tactical. It was shaping up to be a solid fights - and then the House Robots got involved.

There is only one scenario where I can see that Shunt pushing Bodyhammer off the grill could be considered excusable. About halfway through, for literally no reason, the House Robots started to invade the playing field and this really seemed to throw both robots off, causing Bodyhammer to dodge away towards the grill. Now, if Bodyhammer had driven itself onto the grill as a direct result of the House Robots getting in its way, I could understand Shunt then freeing it. However, in this instant, it only got itself slightly caught on the side, enough where it could in theory move away, before REALI-T pushed it on completely. That then becomes REALI-T's doing and therefore eliminates any reason for Shunt to try and push Bodyhammer off other than it's a deliberate attempt to keep the more interesting robot in. Never mind the fact that REALI-T takes severe damage trying to stop this from happening.

Long story short, this fight could have been good, but the interference overall renders this the worst heat final of Series 1, and really, you have to wonder if this is why they decided to go for a pit in the next series. I'd love to see Shunt push a robot out of there.

Number 90
There's lots of ways that a battle could be bad, but there's also plenty of ways a battle could be disappointing. One of those ways is where a robot is clearly dominant over the other and then just breaks down through seemingly no part of its opponent. This'll be significant later, but for now, Wheely Big Cheese vs Suicidal Tendencies was a major disappointment.

The biggest problem here isn't simply that Suicidal Tendencies was the better robot, that much was obvious, it was the fact that Wheely Big Cheese clearly wasn't working properly. It just looked very sluggish in movement overall and could not line-up a decent attack, whereby you can actually see that, no, against a competent robot, Wheely Big Cheese just isn't very good. Suicidal Tendencies is clearly on the path to victory...and then its track locks up. You can even see the moment it happens, when it suddenly jolts violently and from then on, it's just shuffling to the left. From that point on, it's thrown away a fight it was winning.

Notice how I'm not really talking about the "controversial end"? That's because there's no reason to talk about it. I feel people hype this up WAY more than needs be - this'll also be significant later - but the fact remains that Kronic the Wedgehog was also deemed immobile after losing drive to one side literally one heat earlier and nobody complained about that. The House Robots would have turned on Suicidal Tendencies if they weren't that desperate to let Wheely Big Cheese do the honours.

Some people claim that Wheely Big Cheese didn't deserve the win - I'm inclined to agree. But that's for something that happened LONG before the pit incident. Just saying.

Number 89
Rounding off the trio of heat finals that felt dubious to the point that it seemed like there was some outside interference going on, I'm legit surprised THIS fight got as high as it did. Considering it's the final battle of what is largely considered the worst heat in Robot Wars' history, you'd think this'd be lower, especially with that Judges' decision. However, I would argue that, if you watch Napalm vs Demolition Demon just as a fight, ignoring what comes afterwards, it's...actually not that bad for its time. It's surprisingly active given the relatively sluggish nature, to the point where it legit doesn't feel sluggish, both robots perform well, both are aggressive, there's actual damage caused and it's ultimately a very close fight that could have gone either way. It deserves to be higher.

The problem is the judges' decision itself, which kinda spoils the whole thing. Here's the official explanation. "Well the judges say, although you [Napalm] sustained a lot of damage, it was given to you by the House Robots and that you were far more aggressive than Demolition Demon!"

- The judges' reasoning

And let me be frank....this is completely Terror-Bull!
 * 1) Napalm's greatest damage was when part of its rear armour fell off. However, that was caused by Demolition Demon, not the House Robots. It didn't come off until it was well away from the PPZ, when Demolition Demon rammed it.
 * 2) Even IF it HAD been caused by the House Robots, so what? That's what they're there for. Every other fight before or since has considered damage caused by the House Robots as counting.
 * 3) "Far more aggressive", are you kidding me? The two robots were on pretty much equal terms throughout the fight, there's no way you can say that one was far more aggressive than the other...unless you were looking at this through a Chomp-mentality and only counting attacks from the primary weapon as counting as "aggression", whereby Napalm literally got two swings and hits and that was enough....but that's a stupid mentality to have, always has been, always will be.

Either way, this fight was setting up to be decent for its time, but it ended up being a complete mess due to one extremely questionable Judges' decision, and I'm willing to say it - this is the worst the series has ever had. I don't know whose idea it was to negate any aggression that wasn't caused by an active weapon, but if that's what cost Demolition Demon the fight, then that's just stupid. But hey, at least we know what influenced the scoring criteria for Season 2 of the BattleBots reboot, right?

Number 88
The next few fights on the list were around about equal in terms of scoring, all getting eight points. At times like these, I have to let my own personal bias take over. I'm sure this would have been in a higher position on any other day, but a bizarre set of circumstances meant that Panic Attack vs Kat 3 dragged on for far longer than it needed to.

We all know what Panic Attack does. Its main strategy is to get underneath a robot, lift them up and dump them in the pit. We already saw it pull this off easily with Tiberius 2 the previous round, as well as in several of its victories in Series 4. But against Kat 3, it faces a very novel opposition - its opponent has no baseplate. This is a dream for Panic Attack as it's able to easily hook under Kat 3, leaving it to its mercy...and then it becomes a nightmare for the general viewing audience when it discovers that it legitimately can't get Kat 3 OFF its forks.

The entire Kat 3 having no baseplate ends up playing against this fight drastically. Instead of a tactical romp which I always applaud Panic Attack's fights for, it ends up with Panic Attack having Kat 3 stuck on its lifting forks for faaaaaar longer than it should have. It takes ages before Panic Attack realises the only way to get Kat 3 off is to put it in the pit, and even then it takes ages to do that, after effectively snapping Kat 3's armour from the inside - virtually the only interesting part of the match. If Panic Attack had tried to do this earlier, it may have been ranked higher. But oh well....

Number 87
Oh look, another heat final from the reboot. It's almost as if they weren't very good!

That's a massive generalization, of course. Not all of the heat finals of the reboot were bad by any means, but so far, all of them I've covered so far, with the exception of Nuts vs Concussion, suffer from the "We saw a far better fight earlier" flaw. TR2 vs Dantomkia is no exception to this rule and, for whatever reason, this whole fight felt really....off.

To put it simply, both TR2 and Dantomkia are fast-paced robots with solid flippers that put up really entertaining battles, unless you hate flippers of course in which case there's no pleasing you. Both robots, Dantomkia especially, are already hindered with their flippers not really functioning properly due to the cold weather, but for some reason, both of them are really rather sluggish throughout a lot of the battle. And if they're actually moving at the speed they're meant to, then it certainly doesn't feel like it. As a result, the pace of the battle grinds to a crawl with neither robot really being aggressive and resorting to the floor flipper having to knock out Dantomkia. I'll give TR2 credit for being the dominator throughout, but that's all I can give it.

Long story short, a heat final where both robots aren't working properly just isn't very good....

Number 86
...but a battle where only one of the robots is working properly isn't really any better. It doesn't matter how good or how spectacular the winning robot is, it's still a win by formality at the end of the day. Especially if it goes on for much longer than it needs to.

I find it hard to be positive about Dominator 2 vs Corkscrew. Heck, I find it hard to be positive about Corkscrew being in the heat final in the first place. After a tense tussle against 13 Black in Round 1, everything seemed to go downhill, largely due to the fact that its main weapon simply wasn't working for the entire rest of the heat. When you've got to fight against any seeded robot, let alone Dominator 2, not having a weapon already gives you a major disadvantage.

Yet, for me, the biggest issue with this fight is that it went on for far, far longer than it had any right to. Corkscrew was largely evasive throughout most of the battle and whilst I can give some credit if it amounts to anything, nothing it did really changed anything in the long run except Dominator kept missing its axe. Admittedly, the way Dominator defeated Corkscrew was kinda neat - fairly stylish if you ask me - but it took way too long to happen.

I think this could have been a better fight had Corkscrew's weapon actually been working. Keep in mind, I don't think the results would have changed, I just think the fight would have been better, something that may be worth discussing for a future list. Unfortunately at the end of the day, it was a formality and not a very good formality at that.

Number 85
It's strange, isn't it? Sometimes what we remember most about a fight isn't the whole fight, but just one little moment in the fight. Lets test that out for a second - mention Razer vs Onslaught, and people would probably say "Oh yeah, that's when Matilda got destroyed" and that's pretty much it. Likewise, say "Raging Reality vs Tetanus 2" and likely people won't remember it until you mention the fact that Refbot drove into the pit. That's just what people are likely to remember, and the same is true for the next fight as well. The difference being that Razer vs Onslaught and Raging Reality vs Tetanus 2, outside those moments, were pretty decent at worst.

Let's face it, we all know the defining moment of Scutter's Revenge vs Pussycat. But I'd struggle to find anyone who really remembers what happened after that moment. Which is a shame, because at first, it seemed like it would be a reasonably solid, active fight, with both Scutter's Revenge and Pussycat providing some solid attacks, a contrast between the fast and nippy Pussycat and the steady and deliberate Scutter's Revenge. The fight goes downhill, funnily enough, the moment Pussycat's blade shatters against the arena wall.

Obviously without its blade, Pussycat can no longer attack effectively, but not long after that, Scutter's Revenge starts to slow down, even more than before. The first of Team Scutterbots' infamous reliability issues that plagued them across every series and it was just as it seemed like Pussycat had thrown away the victory. However, rather than Scutter promptly breaking down under seemingly no pressure, most of the entire commentary is taken up with the fact that Pussycat's blade was an illegal weapon. It was clearly going for an angle of controversy here, and I suppose Scutter's breakdown helped....I'm guessing in an attempt to make you wonder if Scutter would win despite seemingly losing....but I feel like it was trying to carry the entire fight by this point, since it had completely run out of steam.

Ultimately, Pussycat would be disqualified and Scutter's Revenge went through anyway, but I feel like this outcome had been nailed into our heads by this point so...who cares? I doubt it would have mattered. I'm not convinced this version of Pussycat would have beaten 101 anyway. Future versions? Oh, there's no contest.

Number 84
I'm going to say something that will blow your minds....quick fights are not always a bad thing.

What's that? That's not mind-blowing at all? You like quick fights yourself? Oh....OK. There goes that analogy. But guys, seriously, I do have an appreciation for fights that are ended quickly, with my only real consideration being if both of the robots are working properly. This is why I'm a fan of Fire Storm vs Crasha Gnasha, but can't understand all the praise directed towards Cerberus vs Griffon. If Griffon hadn't just stopped after moving a few feet, I may have actually thought it a decent fight. This'll become relevant later down the line, but for now, I want to talk about two other quick fights that had issues for different problems.

Spawn Again vs Diotoir was pretty much a formality. I mean, it's Diotoir against a flipper, that's never going to end well for Diotoir. Still, I can't deny that it was a solid knockout on Spawn Again's part and it gets bonus points as far as I'm concerned for a fast finish. But if the battle's over this quickly, why then does it drag on so much? Well, because after Diotoir was counted out, Spawn Again was to push it into the pit. And it began to, until...here we go again...reliability issues set in and for whatever reason Spawn Again just stopped. I don't even know what happened, because after way too long of Sgt Bash and Matilda kicking Diotoir in the teeth - literally - Spawn Again starts up, only to run into Refbot and stop again. And this is why you can't trust Spawn Again with anything, even a gentleman's agreement. It's not that they're bad sports, it's just they're not very good at keeping their robots alive...

Number 83
You may think I've not talked about Spawn Again vs Diotoir all that much, but that's simply because it shares a lot in common with Carbide vs Eruption. In a way, both fights are very similar - both fights are decided in pretty much seconds after the first attack and then drag on for much longer than need be - Spawn Again vs Diotoir because the House Robots took their jerk-pills that day, Carbide vs Eruption because of the new immobilisation clause the reboot had that meant being immobile on one side didn't count you out provided you could show movement across the arena. I'm still not sure how I feel about that.

Honestly, I feel the biggest issue both these heat finals had was that they were poor endings after a set of really solid performances. Spawn Again and Diotoir had both had some really strong showings in their previous battles, with Spawn Again throwing Evolution clean out of the arena and Diotoir having a masterclass fight against Tornado. Meanwhile, Carbide vs Eruption came at the end of arguably THE best heat Robot Wars has ever had across its two arcs, with all of its other fights being classics. The heat finals were always going to be at a disadvantage, although even watching them on their own, they're still not good.

Why is Carbide vs Eruption ranked higher than Spawn Again vs Diotoir? Probably because there was no needless time-wasting with the House Robots, to be honest. Series 5 was when the House Robot attacks started to get unnecessarily over the top, after all.

Number 82
Lets get the positives out of the way.

Plunderbird 2 vs The Mule was a pretty decent demonstration as to what Plunderbird 2 could actually do. Both robots were clearly trying to be aggressive. There was very little House Robot involvement, which for Series 2 is an absolute blessing. And Plunderbird performed really well. I think this fight was one of the earliest examples of a fight where the winner clearly dominated the loser without it feeling like it was a formality. For such an early series, that's honestly a good thing.

The problem with this fight....it was sooooooo sloooooow!!

If I was ranking this fight purely on activity this would be SO much lower! I'm not against fights dragging, but the payoff needs to be there and it just wasn't. The entire fight was just "Plunderbird wedges The Mule, pushes it a bit, lets it go, lather, rinse, repeat ad infinitum". I swear, it felt like the fight only got a minute of airtime total. If that's what we saw for the entire five minutes, then that's really really disappointing. Heck, I'm legit surprised this ranked higher than some fights with more activity. Guess that commanding performance from Plunderbird must really mean something....

Number 81
You're going to see the word "Formality" come up a LOT in this countdown if you haven't noticed already. I should clarify, just because a battle is a formality, doesn't necessarily make it bad, but it does sour the fight at least a bit. Especially when only one of the robots was working properly.

In theory, Behemoth vs Inquisitor should not have been a formality on paper. You could argue that Behemoth had the better weapon, true, but otherwise, these two had been really consistent throughout the heats, finishing in the top three of both the Gauntlet and the Trial. The problem here is that Inquisitor, with the best will in the world, shouldn't have been here in the first place. The real favourite for the heat was clearly Razer, having blitzed both Gauntlet and Trial ahead of these two and then causing serious damage to Inquisitor, effectively destroying both of its weapons, before randomly breaking down. But because Inquisitor had been so badly damaged, it was clear it was never going to stand a chance against Behemoth.

As a result, most of the fight is Behemoth just pushing a broken Inquisitor around. I'll give Inquisitor some credit for trying to fight back, but the result was inevitable - pushed into the PPZ and (because DESTROY EVERYTHING THAT MOVES mentality) the House Robots set on it. I'd argue that Behemoth would probably have beaten Inquisitor anyway, but it's just a shame that this was how it had to do it.

At least it was over fairly quickly, I suppose....

Number 80
I don't always have a problem with a robot being eliminated by an arena hazard. However, it still needs to be an action through the attacking robot for me to not have a problem with it. For example, a robot winning a battle by pushing its opponent into the pit is far better than a robot winning a battle because its opponent simply drove into the pit. This is significant because, for Series 3, this also technically covers the universally loathed arena spikes. With the pit closed for the heat final onwards, the spikes acted as the only instant KO hazard in the arena and despite how terribly they were handled, I can at least understand the logic there. For this reason, I can't really bash Gravedigger vs The Darke Destroyer on the basis that Darke Destroyer was flipped by the spike...but it's still a disappointment.

The thing is, I'm sure most people wouldn't even realise that it was the spike that flipped Darke Destroyer over in the first place if this was your first time viewing the fight. The camera angle obscures the spike and the almost-perfect timing seems to imply that it was through Gravedigger's own attack that Darke Destroyer was overturned. Which is a shame because I might have ranked it up a notch or two otherwise, because this fight, once again, was rather dull. There was only really one significant attack - that of Gravedigger bundling Darke Destroyer across the arena - and aside from that, little else. Honestly, I remember it the least well of all of Series 3's heat finals.

Sure, Gravedigger would have won the fight even without the spike. It got the only really meaningful attack and had already bulldozed Darke Destroyer into Dead Metal a few times. I just wish it could have knocked it out the way we all thought it had....or at least done so faster.

Number 79
Speaking of "done faster"....Mousetrap vs Little Fly is by far the most forgetful fight of the whole of Series 4, and yet somehow it outranks four others. Probably because there's no breakdowns. So it's got that going for it.

I've gone on record as saying that Mousetrap and Little Fly were arguably the weakest robots in Heat K, or at the very least the robots that really should have been knocked out in Round 1, and yet somehow they had the best fight of the episode, again because there were no breakdowns...every single other fight ended up with something just going wrong with another robot, except technically Weld-Dor's demise and even that felt delayed. The fight goes pretty much as you'd expect from the two (subjectively) weakest robots of the heat - neither robot can really do much to the other and after about the halfway mark, everything slows down to a major crawl, to the point neither robot can move all that well.

However, to give the battle credit, it was extremely close. Both robots managed to play to their strengths, got in lots of weapon attacks and whilst the damage may have looked minimal, it clearly effected both robots, yet they both still pulled through. Really, I think the main problem this fight has is because it was so slow and nothing really major happened. It's technically Hypno-Disc vs 101 levels of close, and yet it really doesn't feel it.

Number 78
I don't mind quick fights. In fact, I think they can be really good. It's cool to see a robot be able to defeat its foe as quickly as possible, even if it is at the expense of leaving me with nothing to talk about. Luckily, Robot the Bruce vs Wedgehog does leave me with one thing to talk about, albeit maybe not in the kindest way.

Quite simply, this was the biggest mismatch of any heat final Robot Wars has ever had.

I mean, what did you expect from a fight where one of the robots was 3.5 times the weight of the other? I hope you weren't expecting a close fight, because that's not what we got. Robot the Bruce pushes Wedgehog straight onto the grill. End of. It's certainly a very convincing knockout, equivalent of pushing your foe down the pit after all...but it's a formality nonetheless. Still, points to Wedgehog for trying, and that knockout was pretty commanding.

Number 77
I feel I should stress something before I go any further. When I ranked these heat-finals, I was looking at the heat final as a whole. What I wasn't seeking out specifically were any specific moments that happened. They helped boost a battle's score, certainly, but just because there's a good moment, doesn't automatically make it a good battle.

If I was ranking these fights purely based on moments, then Pussycat vs Fluffy would be much higher. There isn't a lot to talk about in the fight itself, with the early moments having both robots running around each other, getting their weapons up to speed trying to catch the other off guard, but really, Fluffy is clearly running away from Pussycat. Pussycat comes in to land an attack on the fleeing Fluffy....only for Fluffy to call Pussycat's bluff, turn around and completely smash its entire front. The resulting impact tears off both Pussycat's saw and one of its castors. Keep in mind this is the same Pussycat that managed to defeat Hypno-Disc and Razer, the former of which caused it very little visible damage - certainly not to the level of what Fluffy did. But now it has no weapon and it's just not designed to do anything without it. Fluffy is guaranteed a victory in what could be one of the biggest shocks ever, which in turn would make this one of the best battles of the series.

And then it breaks down for no reason (or, if you prefer, because 101's curse infected it from way back in their first fight and it took until now for it to take hold). And then the quality of the fight plummets.

Look, I know the fact that Fluffy so violently defanged Pussycat still makes for a stunning moment, but the fact it then didn't win really hurts this fight, especially because it was something that Pussycat didn't do. A dominant robot breaking down through no action of its opponent will always put a negative tone on a fight (see Wheely Big Cheese vs Suicidal Tendencies) and it'll just leave you feeling that the robot who "won" just didn't deserve it. And for a robot as great as Pussycat, that's kind of a hard truth to swallow.

Remember, the curse of 101 will always strike eventually....

Number 76
Rounding out the fights that didn't end up scoring in the double-figures is a fight that, perhaps arguably, should have done. For its time, it was a pretty tense tussle. But various factors really hurt it in the long run and I am not OK with that.

First of all, a relatively minor point but one that hurts this fight a bit - for me, a good heat final is between two robots who are working to their full potential. It's no fun seeing a fight involving a robot that clearly isn't fully working how it's meant to be. Clearly, Recyclopse vs Mortis isn't that fight - it's made blatantly clear right from the get-go that Mortis, by far the favourite going into the heat, has now been rendered weaponless. Gone is its axe that would surely have secured it victory, instead the team have stuck the tanto blade on the front like a ram.

Despite this, however, Mortis puts up a very spirited performance. So much so, you wouldn't think it was originally an axe-bot. It manages to push Recyclopse around a few times, gets right underneath it a few, although it is unable to really capitalize before Recyclopse falls off. By contrast, Recyclopse is trying to be aggressive, but its attacks are far less effective. I know the general consensus is that Mortis did all the attacking in the fight and it was simply credited as Recyclopse doing it, but on rewatching it's actually a lot closer than you might think.

That being said, I'd still argue that Mortis performed the more meaningful moments...both ways. It got off the more effective attacks, true, but it was also the one who got itself into trouble with the House Robots, twice getting itself stuck. I know this was the first time the judges had to make a decision and they probably weren't sure on how best to distribute the points, but I don't strictly think the fact Mortis got itself caught should have really detracted from the fact its attacks were more successful than what Recyclopse could pull off.

In fact, the biggest issue I have is the fact everything feels forced. This isn't simply the fact that Jonathan Pearce was greatly exaggerating everything that was happening in the battle (even more so than he usually did with Series 1) and crediting it entirely towards Recyclopse, I can only assume in an attempt to make the viewers believe Recyclopse deserved the resulting decision, but even the decision itself was forced. Noel Sharkey has gone on record as saying that he and the other judges were "forced to make a decision with a very aggressive crowd screaming in our ears and pushing us into the barriers", having wanted to consider the battle a draw but being unable to do so. That is not the atmosphere a judge needs to decide a battle, by the way. He also states that he wasn't too happy about picking Recyclopse, again most likely because of all the pressure. We've come a long way since then - they took 45 minutes to decide the Series 6 Grand Final between Tornado and Razer. Never pressure a judge. They need time to decide these things.

Number 75
There's lots of fights that many people love that others just don't see where all the hype is. I should know - I for one have never liked the Series 3 fight between Cerberus and Griffon, nor have I ever really understood the hype. Yes, I know it was officially the quickest fight for many years, but for me, this title is hindered by two major problems. First of all, Griffon (as it seemed to do a lot of in Series 3) just stops after moving a few feet, allowing Cerberus plenty of time to pit what was essentially a dead robot, which isn't THAT impressive. Furthermore, it only really came about because Griffon started on the pit-side of the arena, and "died" when it was pretty much parallel to the pit.

To get back on topic, if I want to watch a robot pushing a dead robot into the pit very quickly, I'd rather watch Shockwave vs Thor. At least Shockwave was directly responsible for Thor's breakdown, as opposed to whatever happened with Griffon.

There's little to talk about. It's decided on a breakdown and it pales in comparison to a great battle we already had in the heat. All of these actively hurt this fight's score. What saves it from being in the "bad tier", as opposed to the "OK tier" where it ranks now, is that it's a quick knockout and honestly, a big surprise. Who really saw this happening after Thor had dominated everyone throughout its heat, including Shockwave itself? I certainly didn't, and I'd otherwise had pretty high hopes for Shockwave. Also, keep in mind, Shockwave started closer to the pit, so it had to knock Thor out, turn it around, activate the pit and push it down - so much better than Cerberus did with Griffon. Just saying.

Number 74
If you've been following this countdown up until now, then you may have realised that I have pretty much torn apart some of the worst heat finals in every single series of Robot Wars thus far...except for one. I'm sure many people will be happy about the fact it's taken until now for me to talk about Series 7 and I think it speaks volumes about the quality of the fights themselves, when you consider it's taken over a quarter of all the battles to get around to talking about one.

Nonetheless, we're here now, and it's time to talk about what I consider to be the worst heat final of Series 7 - which is a shame because Thermidor 2 vs Mighty Mouse is still far more watchable than many other fights. As a fight, it's...well, one-sided. It's super obvious Thermidor will win going in, it's not even remotely close between the two when the fight actually gets underway, there's actually a lot of dead-space going on and, honestly, the battle starts to lose a lot of pace after Mighty Mouse's drive seizes up.

But it's just so fun to watch. Just the sight of Mighty Mouse going everywhere, either trying to run away or desperately driving onto Thermidor's flipper is actually quite enjoyable. I've heard it being stated as "less of a fight and more like a Tom & Jerry cartoon", although that's not entirely accurate since Thermidor would have been hit by an anvil if that were the case...but I get where they're coming from. Also, Jonathan Pearce has some real classic quotes for this fight. "You can't play hide and seek in the warzone! Boo, let's play peek-a-boo, oh run away, here I am, I've gone, over here!"

- Example 1

"If this goes to the judges, can you imagine the mark for aggression for Mighty Mouse? Can we do minuses? I'm not too sure."

- Example 2

An entertaining air about a bad battle won't save it from being bad, but it'll still go some way to making up for it. If this is legit the worst Series 7 has to offer in terms of Heat Finals, then I'm OK with that.

Number 73
Heh, of course this would happen. It takes absolutely ages for me to get to a Series 7 fight and then two come along at once. That's just so typically me, isn't it?

Now, to be fair, I'm not against fights that are completely one-sided. As long as they're entertaining at the very least, they can still be fun. Sadly, Storm 2 vs Steel Avenger just isn't entertaining at all. And I had such high hopes going into it as well, especially from watching Storm 2's previous fight where it slammed Trax all around the arena at high speed. I was hoping for something similar in this fight. But we never really got it. Instead, all we got was Storm 2 pensively pushing Steel Avenger around, making very little effort to do anything with it. That's when the fight honestly stops being fun and starts being boring.

I must admit, first time I saw this, I actually switched off about half way through when I realised that nothing of note was going to happen. No other fight, not even something as bad as Napalm vs Warhog or M.R. Speed Squared vs Foxic, has ever made me do that. It was just that boring, and even now, upon trying to rewatch it, I still find it so dull I zone out. If only it had had something really exciting or unexpected happen, like a really impressive knockout nobody saw coming...I may have ranked it SO much higher.

Still, I'm glad I was able to talk about this today. I was worried I wouldn't get the chance.