Robot combat and professional wrestling. Two of my favourite things to watch on television, of which I am always happy to discuss about in great detail. During the heyday of robot combat, from the late 1990s to the early 2000s, professional wrestling was also one of the hottest things out there. WWF Raw vs WCW Nitro every Monday night, which were capable of drawing a combined rating of 10.5 during the peak sometime in late 1998 and early 1999. Pretty much, if you were a robot combat and wrestling fan, this time period was essentially heaven for you.
But upon rewatching Extreme 1, I have noticed that, when compared to the four previous series, it took many elements from wrestling. And why not? Even by 2001, when WCW was dead and WWF was beginning to cool thanks to the poor Invasion angle, wrestling itself was still fairly hot, and so to attract the same male demographics that routinely tuned into Raw, some wrestling troupes would surely help the show, right? Heck, the main reason TNN aired two series of Extreme Warriors was because they felt that both Robot Wars and Raw (which they recently got broadcasting rights for), complemented each other in multiple ways. Henceforth, this begs the question: How many ways did Extreme 1, the closest Robot Wars got to in replicating wrestling in my opinion, utilise wrestling troupes?
Additionally, Brad Stone's underrated book Gearheads: The Turbulent Rise of Robotic Sports, made some very bold claims about Robot Wars, especially the US show, when compared to BattleBots. He claimed the following about the TNN and Nickelodeon shows:
- "Little about the taping indicated authentic competition. It was a TV show, pure "sports entertainment," with the builders and their robots filling in the roles of actors in a mechanical melodrama. Before matches, the competitors were lined up in front of a tunnel leading to the arena and instructed to playfully yell at each other-professional wrestling style"
- — Gearheads
And if that wasn't enough, here is what he said earlier in the book regarding BattleBots:
- "Unlike Robotica or Robot Wars in the United Kingdom, this was a real tournament, with only the overlay of a TV production. Matches followed each other in quick succession. Teams fought each day, sometimes twice a day, and there was always something going on, and new innovative robots to inspect"
- — Gearheads
I would not be at all surprised if some of you reading this are mad about what Stone had to say about Robot Wars, perhaps even getting the pitchforks out. But here is the thing: As I will note in the blog, there are multiple connections between Extreme 1 and wrestling. Henceforth, is it really that disrespectful to call Robot Wars "sports entertainment", even if sports entertainment nowadays gets a bad rep for ruining wrestling? I will attempt to evaluate Stone's claims at the end of this blog.
The "Extreme" connection
Let's begin with something as simple as its name. Robot Wars: Extreme. A very fitting name, since this series was quite clearly unique compared to the traditional formats utilised by the previous four tournaments. Instead of a linear format that changed year to year, a variety of matches were given to fans, contributing towards refreshing the show as it entered the 100kg era. Perhaps the flexibility factor was what made Extreme 1 better than Extreme 2 in my opinion, since even if one match was awful, at least it was not repeated multiple times, thus giving us fresh, interesting battles throughout each episode.
Wrestling has a similar relationship with "Extreme". Modern wrestling fans will most likely link extrem with WWE's Extreme Rules PPV. For others, extreme is probably most synonymous with Extreme Championship Wrestling (or, if you are Jerry Lawler or Jim Cornette, Extremely Crappy Wrestling). Either way, the meaning of "extreme" in wrestling is pretty much the same as what extreme means in Robot Wars. Gimmick matches, and lots of them! This is probably why ECW is still fondly recalled by many wrestling fans. Sure, the matches could go completely out of control some times (for example, the Mass Transit match), but they were fresh, they were fun and arguably were the most compelling during a dire time for wrestling in the mid-1990s (especially 1995).
Likewise, whereas Robot Wars: Extreme did get carried away with some of its gimmick battles (for example, most International fights were pretty poor, to be honest), others, like Mayhems, Vengeance and the All-Stars, are fondly remembered. And just like where we would not have seen the same level of violence in WWF or WCW that ECW displayed, we would have been very lucky to experience the majority of these battles within the linear Robot Wars format. Perhaps that also explains why the US spinoff was named "Extreme Warriors", because of this link between the carnage found in wrestling and robot combat.