Below is a list of the quickest battles in the history of the UK series of Robot Wars, as of Series 10.
The table below lists all battles that were ended after thirty seconds. The battle times below are taken from the moment 'activate' is called to the time when a losing robot is deemed to be "officially" immobilised. The criteria of official immobilisation is only met when:
- A competitor robot is thrown out of the arena.
- The losing robot falls into the pit while not deemed immobilised.
- An immobilised robot is attacked by the House Robots (Series 1 to Series 4), counted out by Refbot (Extreme Series 1 to Series 7), or counted out ten seconds after immobilisation (Series 8 onwards). The quickest immobilisations are listed elsewhere.
The most common means in which a battle can end quickly is if a robot is flipped out of the arena, with twelve of the battles listed below involving a robot being eliminated this way. Less frequently, a fight can end quickly if a robot drives, or is pushed into, the Pit of Oblivion. These quick battles often involve robots equipped with a powerful weapon capable of out of the arena flips (e.g. a high pressure flipper), or which feature high pushing power, which enables them to gain sufficient speed, manoeuvrability and traction to push another competitor and swiftly dispatch it into the pit.
NOTE: There are some battles where one robot does not move from the start and is deemed immobilised almost immediately. Dreadnaut vs Rattus Rattus, Evil Weevil vs Panzer, and Spartacus 2 vs Flippa are examples of these, in which one robot did not move at all during the battle. There is some debate about whether these bouts count as a conventional "battle"; therefore, to aid clarification, these types of battles are not included in the lists below.
Shortest Battle Record[]
This record was first set in Series 1. Across seven series of the original UK Robot Wars, as well as both series of Robot Wars Extreme and Series 8-10, there have been six holders of the record:
- Recyclopse (against Scrapper, 0:15)
- Cunning Plan (against The Demolisher, 0:14)
- Cerberus (against Griffon, 0:10)
- Dantomkia (against IG-88, 0:09.7)
- Gravity (against Dantomkia, 0:05.8)
- Rapid (against Track-tion, 0:05.6)
The Shortest Battles[]
Note: Few battles, even the very short ones, are shown on TV without any footage cut. Therefore it is impossible to know the true durations of all these battles. For consistency's sake, length is measured based on the TV-edited version of the battle.
- Battles listed with a gold background (desktop only) have held the record for shortest battle at any one time.
- Battles listed with a dagger (†) are the fastest battle of that particular series.
Rank | Battle | Winner(s) | Series | Round | Time (in minutes) | Method | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
#1 | Rapid vs Track-tion | Rapid | Series 10† | Heat C, Semi-Final | 00:05.6 | Out of the arena | Shortest battle in Robot Wars history. |
#2 | Gravity vs Dantomkia | Gravity | The Seventh Wars† | Semi Final 1, Round 1 | 00:05.8 | Out of the arena | Shortest ever battle in the Classic Series. |
#3 | Eruption vs Cherub | Eruption | Series 9† | Heat B, Final | 00:06.5 | Out of the arena | |
#4 | Dantomkia vs IG-88 | Dantomkia | The Seventh Wars | Heat C, Final | 00:09.7 | Out of the arena | Shortest battle in the Classic Series to take place in the Heats. |
#5 | Griffon vs Cerberus | Cerberus | The Third Wars† | Heat N, Round 2 | 00:10 | Pit | Shortest battle not to involve an out-of-the-arena flip, and shortest battle where one robot pitted the other. |
#6= | Fire Storm vs Crasha Gnasha | Firestorm | The Third Wars | Heat O, Round 1 | 00:12 | Flipped | Fastest battle of the Classic Series where one robot was officially immobilised and counted out, rather than pitted or flipped out of the arena. |
#6= | Wheely Big Cheese vs Axe-Awe | Wheely Big Cheese | The Fifth Wars† | Heat H, Semi Final | 00:12 | Out of the arena | |
#8= | Kadeena Machina vs Dee | Kadeena Machina | Series 9 | Battle of the Stars, Episode 2, Round 2 | 00:14 | Knockout | Fastest battle of the Revival Series where one robot was officially immobilised and counted out. |
#8= | Cunning Plan vs The Demolisher | Cunning Plan | The First Wars† | Heat D, Final | 00:14 | Flipped | Set the Shortest Battle Record until The Third Wars. |
#10= | Recyclopse vs Scrapper | Recyclopse | The First Wars | Heat B, Semi Final | 00:15 | Flipped | The first battle which was notably short. |
#10= | Carbide vs Apollo | Carbide | Series 8† | Grand Final, Head to Head | 00:15 | Knockout | Shortest battle of Series 8. |
#12 | Dominator 2 vs The Executioner | Dominator 2 | Extreme Series 1† | Episode 11, Wild Card Warriors | 00:17 | Pit | Shortest battle of either series of Robot Wars Extreme. Shortest battle to involve a self-inflicted immobilisation. |
#13= | Chaos 2 vs Trident | Chaos 2 | The Third Wars | Semi-Final, Round 1 | 00:19 | Flipped | |
#13= | Tornado vs Terrorhurtz | Tornado | Extreme Series 2† | Challenge Belt, Challenge | 00:19 | Pit | Fastest battle of Extreme 2. |
#15 | Razer vs Backstabber | Razer | The Third Wars | Heat C, Round 1 | 00:20 | Pit | |
#16= | Spawn Again vs Evolution | Spawn Again | The Fifth Wars | Heat G, Semi-Final | 00:21 | Out of the arena | Mistakenly identified as the Shortest Battle of the first five series by Robot Wars: The Ultimate Guide. |
#16= | Firestorm 4 vs Bigger Brother vs S3 | Bigger Brother, Firestorm 4 | Extreme Series 2 | All-Stars, Heat A, Round 1 | 00:21 | Out of the arena | The shortest battle to feature more than two robots. |
#18= | G.B.H. vs Talos | G.B.H. | The Second Wars† | Heat J, Arena Semi-Final | 00:22 | Flipped | Both of G.B.H's combat battles took 22 seconds to win by flipping. Joint-shortest battle of Series 2. |
#18= | G.B.H. vs Ivanhoe | G.B.H. | The Second Wars† | Heat J, Heat Final | 00:22 | Flipped | Both of G.B.H's combat battles took 22 seconds to win by flipping. Joint-shortest battle of Series 2. |
#20= | Chaos 2 vs Fire Storm | Chaos 2 | The Third Wars | Grand Final, Round 1 | 00:23 | Out of the arena | First ever out-of-the-arena flip. |
#20= | Behemoth vs Techno-Lease | Behemoth | The Third Wars | The First World Championship, Eliminator | 00:23 | Flipped | |
#20= | Arena Cleaner vs JAR | Arena Cleaner | Series 9 | Battle of the Stars, Episode 1, Round 3 | 00:23 | Knockout | |
#23= | Bigger Brother vs Tip-Top | Bigger Brother | The Fifth Wars | Heat I, Eliminator | 00:24 | Out of the arena | |
#23= | Napalm vs Panda Monium | Napalm | The Second Wars | Heat A, Arena Semi-Final | 00:24 | Flipped | Fastest battle to be decided by a House Robot. |
#25 | Atomic vs Hellbent | Atomic | The Seventh Wars | Heat G, Semi-Final | 00:26 | Out of the arena | The second in a record run of four consecutive out-of-the-arena flips for Atomic. |
#26= | Bigger Brother vs Lambsy | Bigger Brother | Extreme Series 2 | Minor Meltdown, Final | 00:27 | Pit | |
#26= | Robot The Bruce vs Wedgehog | Robot The Bruce | The First Wars | Heat C, Final | 00:27 | Grille | |
#28 | Iron-Awe 2.1 vs Bigger Brother | Iron-Awe 2.1 | The Seventh Wars | Heat O, Semi Final | 00:28 | Out of the arena | |
#29= | Bigger Brother vs S3 | Bigger Brother | The Fifth Wars | Semi Final-1, Round 1 | 00:29 | Pit | Both of S3's losses to Bigger Brother were less than thirty seconds in length. |
#29= | Pitbull vs Sumpthing | Pitbull | The Third Wars | Heat B, Round 1 | 00:29 | Breakdown | |
#29= | All Torque vs Crippler | All Torque | The Third Wars | Heat N, Round 1 | 00:29 | Pit | |
#32= | Chaos 2 vs Tornado | Chaos 2 | The Fourth Wars† | Semi-Final 1, Round 2 | 00:30 | Out of the arena | The third of three attempts to film this battle, the previous two being aborted due to arena damage and sudden partial immobilisations involving both robots.[1] Shortest battle of Series 4. |
#32= | Ripper vs Daisy-Cutter | Ripper | The Seventh Wars | Heat P, Round 2 | 00:30 | Flipped | One of the quickest immobilisations in Robot Wars, at less than three seconds. |
Trivia[]
- No fight from The Sixth Wars took less than thirty seconds.
- The fight between Chaos 2 and Tornado is the only fight from Series 4 to last under 30 seconds, and is the longest "shortest battle of the series" excluding Series 6.
- Cerberus took the Shortest Battle Record from the University of Reading by beating one of their machines. Similarly, Gravity set its record by defeating then-current record holder Dantomkia.
- When Robot Wars: The Ultimate Guide was published, it incorrectly identified the bout between Spawn Again and Evolution as holding the Shortest Battle Record at that time. In reality, that battle was the ninth quickest, with Cerberus vs Griffon holding the record at that time. The battle between Wheely Big Cheese and Axe-Awe from Series 5 was also described later on in the guide, and while it was not the shortest battle, its battle duration was strangely declared to be shorter than that of Spawn Again vs Evolution.
- All of the top 30 shortest battles only required one robot be immobilised; the shortest battle to require two immobilisations was the first-round melee between X-Terminator, Tsunami, Major Tom 3 and Diablous in Series 7, Heat F, which took 36 seconds.
References[]
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