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

Y'see, this is how bad this fight is...we don't even have a shot of the heat winner!

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

If you think this is a snipe-shot of Roadblock catching Onslaught and ploughing it over, you're dead wrong

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

Just pack up and go home

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

Solid exhibition, but you do know that this is a battle, right?

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

Err, would someone care to explain why?

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

This LOOKS a lot flashier than it actually is

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

All I can say is, thank goodness for the House Robots

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

Looks solid, but we've seen better

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

Well, after such an embarrassing performance, wouldn't you!?

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

Because I'm sure if it had been, say, Bulldog Breed then S.M.I.D.S.Y. would have been freed

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

If I knew who was the instigator, this fight would either be higher or lower

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

Why must you annoy me so much Pulsar? Oh, wait, wrong era!

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

"The two robots nudge one another"...no, that is LITERALLY the official description

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

This occurs in the first few seconds and is about as engaging as the fight gets

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

Is this why the pit was invented?

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

Spoiler alert - the aggressor lost

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

LOLZ, PRYMERY WEEPUN!!!1!

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

"Hmm...I should probably pit you, shouldn't I?"

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

The caption for this screenshot is "The Floor Flipper decides the outcome". Let me repeat that: The FLOOR FLIPPER decides the outcome!

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

An admittedly stylish knockout doesn't change the fact this fight is pretty bad

...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

This is literally all that matters

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

Any other list, I'm sure this'd be a reference to something much higher up

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

Well, this hasn't happened before

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

dun den dun da-dan, dun den dun da-dan, dun den dun da-dan...du-dun dun!

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

Gimme an F, gimme an O, gimme an R....

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

Imagine my disappointment when I found out it wasn't Gravedigger that flipped Darke Destroyer

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

If this were a Fantasy Fight, armour would be crumpled or flying everywhere. I really wish this was a Fantasy Fight

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

HAHAHAHAHAHA-no.

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

Oh, wow! What an attack! Pussycat has been completely detoothed! There's no way Fluffy can lose this fi-

-ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?!?

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

"Look at that! Recyclopse is really being aggressive now, and is trying to crush Mortis under its own weight!" - Jonathan Pearce, probably

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

Yeah, I'd like to see Cerberus try this

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

Thermidor 2 auditioned for the live-action Tom & Jerry movie. True story

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 (APRIL FOOLS)

Geesh, how dull this was...

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.

Number 73 (ACTUAL)

When this is all we're seeing, that's not going to help matters

OK, but in all seriousness, Number 73 on this list is another Series 7 battle.

To be completely fair, Mute vs Judge Shred 3 isn't a bad little fight. Both robots are quite active throughout, both are clearly trying to be aggressive, obviously watching Mute spring around the arena is fun to watch and, as far as the actual fight goes, the only major issue is the fact that both of them really start to slow down by the time the battle comes to an end. It's not too flashy a fight, but there shouldn't be anything really wrong with it.

The problem I have with it is the terrible editing.

The whole gist of this is that Mute won the judges decision for being more aggressive throughout, and Judge Shred starting to show hampered drive on one side. That in itself is fair enough, but good luck trying to figure that out actually WATCHING the fight! Mute may have gotten attacks throughout, namely several small ones with its rear flipper and that one really big one with its front flipper, but only one of those small attacks was seen in the televised version and even that was easily missable. Why? Because all the focus is being put on Mute's theatrical attempts to self-right.

Look, I can see why, it makes for great television, but this isn't the Gymnastics of Techno Games, this is Robot Wars. We want to see a fight and we want to feel that the robot who wins actually deserves it. Just seeing Mute spring around in the air shouldn't be scoring it all that many points, especially when Judge Shred keeps putting it in this situation. By that logic, and also considering nearly all of Mute's attacks were edited out, Judge Shred should have been the clear winner. It gets to the point where Jonathan Pearce has to make a comment saying that he hopes Mute wins the judges' decision which I assume was done to try and make the result easier to swallow, but in that instance he really should have mentioned Judge Shred's mobility problems, something in itself that could have been crucial but is again quite easy to miss. Just a few little changes would have made Mute's victory that more convincing.

Number 72

We got a very solid knockout here...eventually

One thing I very quickly noticed about how good or bad a heat final ranks is that more often than not, the quality of the robots themselves is not a factor in the slightest. For example, Napalm vs Demolition Demon ended up being a lot higher up the list than I thought it would, as it was ultimately only let down by a really poor judges' decision. On the other hand, you could have two of the most competitive robots in the warzone that could put up some great fights, but if they're not really working to their best, there's not a thing you can do to make the fight "good".

Steg 2 vs Mortis should have been a good fight. It really should have. Steg 2 had delivered some really strong flips in its heat, including one on Matilda, and Mortis was proving just as effective as ever. Obviously Steg 2 was my pick and hope to win, but the fight in theory should have been good. But...it wasn't.

For whatever reason, neither robot seemed to be operating all that freely. Steg 2 was being extremely sluggish on the turn and Mortis, although moving more fluidly, just seemed extremely jittery throughout. Furthermore, what should really have been a real back and forth weapon-fest ended up with hardly any attacks at all...Steg 2's flipper missed, Mortis' axe and lifting arm missed and then both seemed to malfunction for a good portion...ultimately, Steg 2 took advantage of this by landing a killer-flip on Steg 2 and then pushing it so that its axe prevented its lifting arm from overturning it. It is admittedly a very solid KO, but it takes much longer to occur than it really should have done and it sours the fight in a way.

If both Steg 2 and Mortis had been performing the way we'd seen them in their previous fights against Iron Awe and Crusader 2 respectively, I feel it could have been better. But unfortunately we don't get that...the fight feels very slow to get going with neither robot feeling like they're working at their best. I was legit surprised at how disappointing this fight turned out being...especially considering the next fight on the list.

Number 71

That moment when you have a super-rare Pokemon card and everyone wants to be your friend.

Well, if I didn't get any flack for ranking Mute vs Judge Shred 3 so low, or even ranking Steg 2 vs Mortis higher despite seemingly coming across as more negative about it (trust me, there was only a point in separation), I'm definitely going to get some flack now!

In a word, I'm sure many will say that Wild Thing 2 vs Vader is perhaps the most forgettable of Series 6's heat finals. The reason why this could be thought is simple - there's nothing explosive. After four heats in a row with some pretty memorable attacks and knockouts, Wild Thing and Vader simply engage in five minutes of just pushing each other around. It's not exciting, it's not flashy and it really does cause the fight to drag in a few places...however, I think in this particular instance, it barely helps the fight.

You probably know I'm a fan of tactical fights as much as destructive ones. What we got here was a fight of two halves. In the first, Vader got its disc snagged in Wild Thing's armour and tried to push it around the arena. In the second, the roles were reversed. But whilst Vader clearly had the better weapon, and it showed, it was apparent quickly that Wild Thing had the better traction as no matter which side of the fight it was, it was able to push Vader around easily. It may have been easily the worst of its four heat final fights, but to be fair, it's still a fight it deserved to win.

I just wish they didn't spend SO much time being stuck together.

Number 70

Dentists hate him! This one trick prevents tooth decay

In retrospect, I wonder if maybe I've ranked this fight a bit too high.

In comparison to some of the other fights, there isn't really a lot to say about Fire Storm vs Diotoir. In many ways, the good parts of the fight end up being canceled out by the bad parts, and really, it comes across as pretty much average. The best part of the fight is, of course, Diotoir catching fire - there's something about the fact it's only Diotoir's grin that goes up in flames for some reason. The worst part of it is the fact it just feels that Diotoir died on its own through no fault of Fire Storm. Of course, it is admittedly very hard to tell what with all the issues Series 3 had in regards to reception and whatnot.

For all its ups and downs, though, I will say that, if only by default of having Diotoir, I find this fight to be very memorable. The sight of a robot going up in flames will never not be boring for me. It's not just Diotoir either - Dead Metal also ends up catching fire in the tussle and I think by the end he ends up breaking down too. Maybe I am putting too much context into that, but I think I'd always be happy to come back to this fight above many others already mentioned. Sometimes you just gotta watch something burn, after all.

Number 69

Are we absolutely sure Spawn Again and Pulsar aren't distantly related?

I'm sure most of us have done this, but from Series 4 onwards, I would make an extensive note of which robots fought in what battles, sort of like a progress chart. I got the official Series 5 one from the Robot Wars Magazine, but for the other three series I had to make do with sheets of paper...I had a lot of sheets of paper. With all that being said, I wouldn't update the sheets until I'd actually seen evidence of the robots fighting, just in case someone had to withdraw.

Series 7 made this easy for me by having previews of the fights before an advert break, giving me enough time to jot down the names of the robots. This turned out to be a good thing because, when I was noting down Raging Knightmare vs Spawn Again, I had my head down for pretty much the entire duration of the clip...as a result, missing the key point of the fight.

I've already discussed how poor the battle was in terms for a final send-off for Spawn Again, and Team Scutterbots as a whole, which is covered in more detail in my "Good robots with bad departures" list, but as a heat final battle, it's....well, it's dramatic, certainly. It does ultimately count as a malfunction though, that happens very early into the fight, which is a shame because not only is this technically a grudge match but the fight itself had started really well. There was the potential to be a real back-and-forth flipper fight, until Spawn Again's pneumatic system exploded and everything kinda went downhill from there. I can't even really give Raging Knightmare any credit for the KO flip, as Spawn Again had gotten itself stuck on the arena wall at that point - if it had been a snipe-kill, then maybe it would have ranked higher.

That being said, although not strictly the most flashy, this fight does have one of the most unintentionally amusing out-of-the-arena flips ever. Just the pure concept of Spawn Again being balanced so perfectly on the wall the way it was is so brilliant in its own way, and I don't think Jonathan Pearce could have worded it any better. I wouldn't rank it TOO high on the list of best OOTAs mind, but then again, I'm not covering that particular list....

Number 68

If this is what lost Big Brother the decision in the first place, I think I would have forfeited too.

One of the great things about making a list like this is that it really allows you to view every little detail of a fight in a fresh manner. Viewing these fights with an open mind has produced some really surprising results and allowed some older fights to stand relatively toe-to-toe with newer fights when the initial thought would be to dismiss it as merely a "relic of its time". This heat final, tacked at the end of one of the more forgettable heats in Series 3, really surprised me with how active it was. The pace was solid and both robots were being aggressive. For a Series 3 fight, this is good.

Nonetheless, Ultor vs Big Brother...or should that be Big Brother vs Ultor?...has some issues that really don't sit well with me.

I'll save you the obvious issues you'd expect like the fact there was little damage even for its time and the fact that for how active the two robots were being, it wasn't all that enjoyable. Instead, I'm going to jump straight to the elephant in the room - the outcome. I'll say this much - even knowing the actual reason why Ultor withdrew from the competition, I legit would not have been surprised if they actually felt the judges' decision was wrong. I admit, both were being aggressive, but from what we saw, it legit felt like Big Brother was the one being more efficient. It was continually using its wedge and whip more often than Ultor was using its axe, was generally being more effective and, really, the only major thing Ultor did was that moment when Big Brother got its mace caught in its axe. For me, at least, it felt like legit the only reason Big Brother initially lost was because its weapon broke off. Frankly, this really puts a damper on what could have otherwise been a reasonably OK clash. Mind you, I guess the fact they couldn't continue would explain why Ultor wasn't being as aggressive as it could be.

Number 67

To be fair, this wasn't exactly one of Carbide's easier victories in Series 9

I think we've probably established by now that I prefer a heat final where both robots are working at their best. The reason should be obvious, really - it makes for a more satisfying fight overall. Nobody wants to see a robot in perfect condition going up against a robot that has practically been turned inside out just a few battles prior. Although I suppose having to face Carbide twice in the same episode will do that to a robot.

Credit where credit is due, though, in comparison to most of Series 9's heat finals, Carbide vs Apollo had a good amount of spirit to it. Clearly Carbide was going to win, their first fight just a few battles earlier made that clear, but Apollo wasn't going down without a fight.

To give Apollo a fair amount of credit, I think it had the right idea. I don't know whether its flipper was actually working or not, but by trying to present Carbide with just a wedge, it was able to actually deflect the bar spinner, throwing Carbide off-balance. In short, it did better here not using its flipper than it might have done actually using its flipper. Unfortunately, the fight ends up crashing out after a reasonably strong start because, in spite of Carbide causing some significant damage and landing some really solid attacks, it doesn't really incapacitate Apollo in a flashy way...it just nicks the side, Apollo jolts a little bit and just stops. It's a more satisfying conclusion than the previous three fights, maybe, but it's still lacking where it needed to be. And that's a shame - I know Carbide can have good fights, even when it is being dominant. It just seems that all three of its heat finals are on the lower end of the spectrum.

Number 66

You know something isn't quite right when Hypno-Disc isn't using its disc

I must admit, I tried hard to try and come up with a good opening statement for this one. Sometimes I get them, sometimes I don't. This fight was very hard for me to come up with something. The scoring between this fight and the next two fights was pretty much dead even and yet, oddly, they're all very very different from each other.

Of those three, Hypno-Disc vs Berserk 2 is really the only one that is even remotely close, as you'll see when I post the next two entries. If you know me well enough, you'll know that I absolutely love fights that are really close between two machines. But, unfortunately, I don't think this fight was close for the right reasons. It was certainly a very unexpected fight, since at this point, Hypno-Disc had entered the arena with a reputation of tearing robots apart, so for it to bounce harmlessly off the armour of Berserk 2 is something nobody watching at the time could have seen coming. Now Hypno-Disc has a fight on its hands.

But after the first few exchanges, things start to take a dive in quality. It starts when Berserk 2 gets flipped over by the arena spike, which is never a good start. Then, later into the battle, Hypno-Disc starts to suffer from reliability issues and can barely move anywhere except back and forth. Long story short, both robots had problems, but in neither case did their opponent really attempt to take advantage of the situation, at least not effectively. This causes the fight to drag, and saps away at a good deal of the pace and enjoyment there is to it. Credit for being close, of course, but that's more or less it. It's really a hard one for me....

Number 65

Good performance, just wish it had happened sooner

Honestly, looking over them, I think the issues that Hypno-Disc vs Berserk 2 had are also present in Tornado vs Tetanus Booster, albeit not quite so bad. Once again it's a battle that starts off promising. Once again it's a battle that quickly loses all momentum after the first minute or so and then it becomes something of a drag. The only major difference here is the fact that only one of the robots ends up really handicapped. However, since that robot is Tetanus Booster, not Tornado, it then becomes a really one-sided affair with Tornado trying to get Tetanus into the pit and not really making a good job of it. You can do better than this, Tornado.

I mean, I do have to give Tetanus credit for breaking Tornado's lifter, but even that doesn't work in its favour. This is because it managed to break the lifter whilst it was set. Had it managed to disable it whilst it was open, it might have changed the flow of battle, at least somewhat. Hindered exactly where and how Tornado can push. Instead, it ends up leaving Tornado as a wedge, which it excels at being really. Still, at least Jonathan Pearce can keep the fight interesting.

Number 64

3, 2, 1, ACTI-Hey! Come back here and linger!

Well, this isn't going to take long to talk about.

Like Tornado vs Tetanus Booster, Eruption vs Cherub is a hopelessly one-sided battle that really wasn't going to end any other way. It does have a significant advantage though - Eruption is able to score the win quickly. VERY quickly. Like, scoop underneath, drive over to arena wall, throw it out, done sorta quickly.

Now, obviously I prefer a longer battle and this one was clearly a formality, but it was a very solid, stylish knockout and at least Eruption was able to prove its dominance - at least the battle didn't drag on any longer than it needed to. But then you look back through the rest of the list so far and you realise...this is, at least for me, the best heat final Series 9 has to offer. And it's only at number 64, which makes it only "OK".

Let that sink in.

Number 63

What could have been...

Well, I've upset Toast quite enough for now. How about I upset NJGW instead?

I'm sorry, but I just don't really see the appeal of Tornado vs Anarchy. If anything I find it rather dull. Obviously Tornado clearly has the measure over Anarchy, but the walker does just enough to prevent it from really being a complete walkover - Tornado is dominant but not completely so. But I still have issues with this.

First of all, Tornado's choice of weapon. Prior to the fight, Team 101 expressed specific concern about Tornado's disc, fearing it could do damage to its side armour. That would be the perfect set-up, but instead, Tornado completely ignore this and attach a massive spike with the intention of...damaging the side armour. Despite the fact they already have a weapon that could do that. Despite Team 101 literally just admitting said weapon could do so. Surprise surprise, the spike turns out to be completely useless and actually ends up hindering Tornado as it can barely push Anarchy around the arena. You can't chalk all that up to Anarchy's extra weight because when Tornado reversed or got its spike underneath Anarchy's flipper, a move that was admittedly visually impressive, it could push the walker with ease. But most of the time, it just couldn't.

And that leads to the other major problem - with Tornado unable to actually push Anarchy around properly, the fight becomes dull rather quickly. There's still plenty of good-ish moments - Anarchy still puts up a spirited performance and both stay reasonable aggressive - but if Tornado can't do what it's meant to do, then it loses a lot of what could make its battles interesting, and the pace of the battle dies down about halfway through. This would have never happened if Tornado had just had its disc.

Number 62

Gasp! A PPZ victim that's actually FAIR!?

So, as I explained at the beginning of the list, I had a set of six criteria to judge each Heat Final. I also included a set of bonus ranks that may affect a battle's overall score. If you're wondering why I did this, it was because I felt there would be specific moments that would make or break a heat final, and I wanted to include mention of those in a way that influenced the scoring but without being the driving force. Some fights, though, ended up not getting any bonus rankings.

The fact that one of those fights was a Series 2 battle honestly surprises me, and yet, Haardvark vs Havoc is one of those fights that doesn't really have anything that makes it stand out or a pain to watch. It's just all around a fairly decent fight. It's not exactly breathtaking and certainly isn't the most energetic fight from Series 2, but it's overall pretty decent. Both robots show a decent amount of aggression and both also have their times on top. What I really like about this fight, though, is the way Haardvark got the win. You all know how much I hate the way the House Robots and PPZ in general were handled in Series 2? I mean, you should do, I'm not shy about it - but in this case, Haardvark actually pushes Havoc not only into the PPZ, but directly into Shunt. This isn't a battle where Havoc just strays slightly into the danger zone and is ambushed by the House Robots - it is deliberately bulldozed right into a House Robot who then has free-reign - a fair free-reign - to do what it wants.

If I had to give this fight any criticism, it would be, again, weapon choice. I mean, seriously, what were the Havoc team thinking with that mace?

Number 61

Good flip, seen better.

Just a little behind the scenes here - 61 through 55 ended up tying on points overall, so once again I had to separate them based on personal preference. Most of these fights did have some solid moments and were really close to being in the top 50, so I wouldn't strictly say that's a disgrace. However, only one of those fights really disappointed me...and in retrospect, I don't think that's the fight's fault.

I think this has been discussed enough times in Toon Ganondorf's "March Madness" mini-tournament, but Wheely Big Cheese vs Crushtacean was a pretty poor end to what is arguably not only one of the best heats of Series 5, but of the entire original series. Then again, considering what it was up against in six battles before, of course anything less than great is going to look bad. As one of Wheely Big Cheese's heat victory runs it's...well, lets not beat around the bush, it's no better. It's not bad, but it's no OOTA, again it's at a serious disadvantage. The flips Wheely Big Cheese pulled off on Crushtacean were certainly impressive, but literally any other big-name flipper robot could have done that. Heck, any other big-name flipper robot could have pulled off the same KO trick.

On its own, however, the fight is actually very decent. It's got several very good flips and, as I said, a neat little KO trick. The pacing is a little poor and it does, I think, dull a little near the end, but that's about it. The problem is, Wheely Big Cheese vs Crushtacean is always going to be the fly in the ointment of a spectacular heat and a spectacular heat run and, really, nothing can change that. That'll always be something that stains rewatches of this - we know Wheely Big Cheese (and Crushtacean for that matter) can do better. In that aspect it's like Carbide and Eruption in Heat 2 of Series 10....although not AS bad, obviously.

Number 60

A good use of the House Robots....which took a really long time to pull off

Trying to separate these next few fights was really difficult. I went in thinking I knew how to rank them and then having to double-check just to be absolutely sure. When a ranking like this is so close, you end up looking for anything that might either knock a fight up the rank or down a peg or two. Maybe a breakdown, or interference....or, in the case of Razer vs Raging Reality, lag.

The wikia article for this fight makes things very clear. Razer crushes Raging Reality, pushes it towards the CPZ and then very carefully, almost sadistically, pushes it right into Matilda's flywheel. It's surprisingly satisfying to watch and the damage Matilda causes is really solid. What the article doesn't tell you is that there's virtually a full minute between Razer pushing Raging Reality towards the CPZ and then pushing it into the CPZ. What happens within that minute? Razer trying to land a few crushes on Raging Reality and not really succeeding. It only really gets two attacks in and compared to what we've seen Razer pull off before, they were pretty tame. This isn't helped by the fact Raging Reality appears to have died on one side very early on, thus dragging the fight out even more.

I'm sure if Razer hadn't wasted so much time on Raging Reality and gone straight in with the Matilda attack, the fight would have been higher. But, as I said, it was really close and the lag really didn't help. Also, whilst Razer's pit trick was cool, sorry to disappoint you guys, but Chaos 2 already did it the year before.

Number 59

I'm not even sure if this, a credits scene, helps or hinders the fight

I don't mind quick fights. They can be fun if done well and, making this list, I ended up watching quite a few quick heat finals that ended up surprising me. Quick fights do have one major issue - their speed often leaves very little to actually score. Therefore, to even stand a chance of getting a high score, there needs to be some lasting impact. A battle being fast won't save a fight on its own.

Really, I think the main reason why GBH vs Ivanhoe is so high up on this list is because it was fast. It was over within 22 seconds and the fight stopped immediately afterwards. Here's the context - first of all, this was in Series 2. Fights that ended this quickly were exceptionally rare and if they did happen, it was usually from a breakdown. This came from an actual attack. Secondly, the fact that the fight ended immediately after Ivanhoe was flipped meant that there was no lag. It could easily gone on for much longer than it should have and, given how cumbersome the interactions between these two robots were, that really is a good thing. I'm reminded of a quote Jonathan Pearce made when Splinter made its first appearance in Series 4...

"Just look how primitive the robots were two series ago, compared to these days"

— Jonathan Pearce

He had a point. If it weren't for the speed, and also for the way GBH knocked out Ivanhoe, it probably wouldn't be this high. Whether or not Ivanhoe would have self-righted if it had actually been flipped is something we may never know, but GBH didn't take any chances. I can appreciate a tactical tussle like that....more on that later.

Number 58

Remember what I said about remembering one little moment? For me, this was it.

The next few fights, unlike the previous two, don't exactly have anything "wrong" with them, per say, so really the only way I could find myself separating them was based on memory...how well I remembered them between when I first watched them and then subsequent rewatches. The results of this surprised me, with one fight in particular ending up much lower than I thought it would, and some being higher. Blade vs Aggrobot is one of those fights, which is surprising considering it's not exactly a flashy battle by any definition.

To put this into perspective, the only thing I really remembered about the fight outcome was Aggrobot limply dying under mild pressure from Blade. To give Blade credit, though, it was absolutely taking the battle into its own hands and really pushing Aggrobot around with considerable pace for Series 3, although not without Aggrobot getting maybe a few pushes back. To say Blade didn't deserve the win would be completely unjustified at the end of the day - and yet, the one moment I seemed to remember most was the fact that Blade no-selled Shunt's axe completely. Just that one moment was really all I remembered.

I'd like to think I'd remember it better if Aggrobot hadn't died so limply, and that does hurt the fight a bit, but I guess in a way, it's just a slower version of the sort of fight Tornado would have. It was the early years, after all.

Number 57

One of three attacks Thermidor can really be credited for, arguably and the best one isn't even on the wiki? Seriously?

Like Blade vs Aggrobot, Thermidor 2 vs Kronic the Wedgehog is a fight I find myself remembering mainly for one reason - Kronic's flipper breaking apart. It's certainly an iconic moment for Series 4, however, I think the better moment is actually the bit before, where Thermidor falls off Kronic's flipper and fires its own flipper right through that of its opponent's. It's an attack I'm amazed, and shocked, hasn't (as of writing this section) got a screenshot on the wiki. Seriously? Thermidor's article has three nearly-identical pictures of Pussycat attacking it and yet nothing of its flipper locking into Kronic's?

Beyond that, the fight plays pretty much like Blade vs Aggrobot, with mild but otherwise decent aggression, albeit it's a more equal showing by the two and, arguably, I'd say Kronic was more on top than Thermidor even with its broken flipper. Unfortunately, it ends in much the same way...a rather limp death on Kronic's part, ultimately preventing it from being any higher than just "OK".

Seriously, though, why has it taken this long to notice we have no Thermidor-Kronic-flipper-lock photo?

Number 56

Honestly, even this is a little underwhelming

You remember how I said there was nothing really wrong, per say, with Haardvark vs Havoc, it was just fine as a fight overall with nothing too spectacular?

Well, to be perfectly honest, I could say exactly the same about Bulldog Breed vs Kat 3. It's a fight where there's absolutely nothing bad about it, but at the same time, there's nothing really great about it either. It's just a perfectly average fight, which isn't strictly a bad thing, but when you're talking about heat finals and you think how most of them have something that really make it stand out, not having that is going to cause some issues. Bulldog Breed and Kat 3's fight isn't bad, there's nothing wrong with it, it just doesn't have anything that really makes it stand out. If anything, it might even come across as slightly underwhelming, considering what we know these robots can do.

It maybe could have benefited with the two landing more attacks.

Number 55

That's more like it

Funnily enough, the best fight in this band of seven is another fight involving Bulldog Breed...and it's a battle it ends up losing.

Like with the Kat 3 fight, Stinger vs Bulldog Breed 2 starts off very tentatively. It's a decent start, not bad, not great. The attacks are fairly decent, nothing terrible, but nothing spectacular. At least, at first. The difference here for me is the payoff.

Whereas neither Bulldog Breed or Kat 3 were really able to do anything to each other, Stinger's attacks managed to gradually grind down Bulldog Breed, almost systematically. First, the flipper jammed. Then, the gas that powered it came pouring out. THEN, a solid hit caused some internals to fly out and kill Bulldog Breed (look carefully, something does fly out of its open flipper and it looks like it might be its link). Finally, Bulldog Breed starts smoking and the round is over. Stinger may not have appeared to do much, but the gradual build-up was what ultimately defeated Bulldog Breed. It was this fight, rather than its clash with Hammer & Tong earlier, that made me realise that Stinger was a legitimate threat for Series 4.

Number 54

The first of many...

Here's a question for you...how exactly does one separate two battles where the outcome, heck, even the way it plays out, is exactly the same? It's not easy, let me tell you.

Panic Attack vs Disruptor is a battle that doesn't last very long at all. The two robots clash, both briefly win the ground clearance battle and it quickly becomes apparent that Disruptor is at the major disadvantage - not only is Panic Attack far stronger, but it's too low for Disruptor to even attack. From there, Panic Attack performs what would eventually become its most famous go-to move for the very first time, and pushes Disruptor into the pit. More specifically, onto the edge of the pit, then takes a quick moment to adjust its position and nudge Disruptor all the way in. It's a solid pitting, of course...

Number 53

...and the first of many many more

...but against Killertron vs Technophobic, I just feel it's at too much of a disadvantage, purely by being aired afterwards. Killertron pulled off a first for Robot Wars - the first competitor to use the pit to eliminate an opponent, and honestly, it did so in quite a brutal way. It forced an otherwise quite plucky Technophobic towards the pit until it got stuck and then used its axe as a battering ram to force it in. For a Series 2 fight, that's actually quite aggressive. Far more aggressive than I'd argue Panic Attack's was in the next heat.

Buuuut it does lose points for Killertron failing to land even a single axe blow. That'll always hurt.

Number 52

This is what was considered "major damage" back in the day. It's weirdly satisfying on rewatch

Whoa, whoa, seriously? Three Series 2 Heat Finals in a row? And right at the cut-off point? What universe is this?

Oddly enough, my biggest problem with Series 2's heat finals wasn't the typical issue of "fights were decided by the House Robots the moment a robot wandered in, regardless of who was winning prior". Actually, for the most part, the heat finals subverted this trope. No, the bigger issue for me is that they were often much too short, even the fights that lasted the full five minutes. Which is a shame because it's one of the issues that just narrowly keeps Mortis vs Oblivion out of the Top 50.

Lets start with the fact that this is one of the most destructive heat finals of the first two series...heck, the first three. I know it seems laughable that a couple-dozen axe blows would have constituted destructive back in the day, but this was a serious deal back then. Mortis really showed what it could do here, and dominated Oblivion. Now, to give Oblivion some credit, it was still able to push Mortis around and, towards the end, looked like it may have been starting to gain a slight advantage. It's a very durable machine for its time. But there was really no denying Mortis' earlier attacks. That was the highlight of the battle.

Aside from the short length, though, I think the other major issue with this fight was in regards to how much of a formality it was - right down to the ending. Both robots are clearly still mobile when the countdown timer reaches zero, but there's not a single mention of a judges call...Mortis is just straight up declared the winner immediately. Which, yes, is clearly the right call, but you can't just pretend that Oblivion didn't at least try to fight back. Would it have taken just a little effort to mention the judges? That part still really bugs me...more than it should do, perhaps. Does anyone else find that odd?

Number 51

Top 10 Turnabouts Honourable Mention, perhaps?

Just missing out on a space in the top 50 is a fight that I feel had the potential to be more. It's a fight where, once again, there's nothing really wrong with it, just nothing really outstanding - it's very decent, but not spectacular, and it doesn't exactly end on the best note. This and the relatively slow speed of the battle means that Beast of Bodmin vs Invertabrat just doesn't quite make it.

Honestly, if the battle was more action packed, I think it could have made the lower end of the top 50, so having it at just 51 isn't exactly a disgrace. Amongst the good is that it actually presents a comeback for Beast of Bodmin - in the early stages, it's actually Invertabrat that has the advantage, slightly at least. There's a lot of shoving around, but clearly Invertabrat's flipper is being far more effective than anything Beast of Bodmin is doing. Then comes the turnabout, where Beast of Bodmin forced Invertabrat into the CPZ and then...well, Invertabrat just sorta dies rather limply on one side. That also hurts this fight slightly. A proper turnabout should ideally be with a direct knockout.

The fight itself was pretty decent, the comeback was OK and Matilda just falling apart was worthy of a laugh. It needed just a little more for it to be really enjoyable, but it's still a fight I'd watch again.

But now....now we get to the good stuff.

Number 50

It's a good job Extreme 1 happened. Otherwise this would have been a major what-could-have-been.

So, as far as I'm concerned, every fight from here on out can be classed as "good", at the absolute minimum. Still, even then there has to be a weak link. There were actually two fights at the bottom of the top 50 that suffered in similar ways - they were fights that were good, but could have been a WHOLE lot more. And whilst it would have been easy to put the more controversial battle at 50 - more on that later - I ultimately had to pick the battle that just didn't last.

Honestly, I find Pussycat vs Razer a little hard to rewatch, and not simply because of Ian Lewis' reaction to it afterwards. In retrospect, can anyone seriously blame him? He'd just had his machine break down for the third consecutive year and fail to win a heat again - of course he's going to be upset. Looking back over it, from what little we got of the fight, it looked like it was going to be a really solid fight, one for the ages. In theory, both robots were designed in a way that the other couldn't easily get a hold of and that was proven in the opening few seconds. Both machines had had extremely easy fights to get to this stage, and now they really had to earn their stripes, and we got that...for about 30 seconds or so.

Now, the fact we know that Razer's breakdown was actually caused by Pussycat scuffing it in just the wrong place, thus not being a completely random malfunction, does lessen the pain a little bit. Probably a little more so once Pussycat demonstrated that, once it could get its blade in the right place, it probably would have won anyway, as it destroyed Razer's wheel and caused damage to the armour that was never really fixed for the rest of the series. But that doesn't really change the fact that the fight stopped far sooner than it had any right to. Looking back, this makes their Vengeance Battle in Extreme 1 one of the most satisfying fights ever, since it finally gave us the fight we wanted in the first place and, more importantly, some proper closure. That's very important in Robot Wars, after all.

Number 49

This shot is unintentionally hilarious. It looks like Pitbull just slammed Behemoth at Mach Speed, so hard it's sending the larger robot flying!

So, judging from what I said in the previous entry about the "controversial fight", this particular battle probably isn't that much of a surprise. It's another fight that feels like it got cut off too early, but strangely, unlike Pussycat vs Razer, I feel that Pitbull vs Behemoth gets slightly - ever so slightly - better on rewatch.

There's two things one needs to consider here. First of all, when you think about it, Pitbull was actually winning the fight prior to Behemoth getting flipped by the spike. Whilst both were being aggressive, true, Pitbull was getting the more meaningful attacks in. Behemoth really only got one flip in and, ultimately, that was due to Dead Metal grabbing Pitbull outside his CPZ and pushing it into Behemoth (which does make his subsequent re-righting of Pitbull fairer in hindsight if it was indeed deliberate). Honestly, the bigger crime here is that Dead Metal attacked Pitbull, not that he righted it.

The second thing is that, whilst we may all hate the spikes, we have to accept that's what they're there for in the absence of a pit. I've stated my thoughts on them in a previous blog and, really, my problem isn't strictly with function, just with how they were set-up so haphazardly with not even a hint that they were there. It does cut what was otherwise a fairly well-rounded fight pretty short though. I feel it's better on rewatch knowing that they exist, rather than not knowing like on an initial watch...although this is obviously something that should never have been a factor in the first place.

Number 48

The fight technically ended here.

Once again, I find myself trying to decide between two very similar fights. In this case, however, they're almost virtually identical - the same robot wins, by performing the same kill shot and does so after performing very similar tactics.

Now, you guys know that Firestorm is one of my all-time favourite robots. It has had many really solid fights in its time, some extremely swift knockouts and it's just fun to watch for me. However, my scoring system does not allow for personal bias and I have to admit that most of its heat finals were....well, under-par, shall we say. Most were not terrible, but they were often not very spectacular. Firestorm 5 vs Ripper is one such example.

Firestorm's other fights in that heat had felt very commanding, with Firestorm asserting its dominance very quickly. This battle felt much too tentative in comparison. It's telling in particular when Firestorm just wedges itself underneath Ripper, reverses it over onto its back where it can't right itself and then just leaves it. Fair play it does then nudge it back onto its wheels, but then there's a long period of nothing happening before it bundles it against the arena wall and, again, leaves it. I don't know why Firestorm is doing this - it's gone much more aggressively against far superior flipper robots to Ripper before, like Dantomkia and Bigger Brother in the then-recent All-Stars. It's a commanding performance and a stylish knockout, certainly, but it's hardly one of Firestorm's best....

Number 47

OK, be honest - did ANYONE see this coming?

...which is telling when I find myself ranking Firestorm 3 vs Reactor higher up on the list, if only through personal choice. It's a fight that plays out pretty much identically to the fight with Ripper, with Firestorm dominating, getting its opponent stuck briefly before freeing it and then bundling it out of the arena. So what makes it better?

Two things, really. First, Reactor was putting up a better fight than Ripper was. Fact remains, it managed to get under Firestorm first - wasn't able to do anything significant, but that's something. It's also using its axe quite a bit too...it's still something technically. The other better thing is the OOTA itself - it's done in one swift movement, with Firestorm throwing Reactor against the arena wall and the latter's body-design causes it to overbalance over. This is the first time a forward-hinged flipper has ever performed an OOTA, something I felt should have been impossible, even considering how low the walls were. But it's a solid sight to behold all the same.

Here's hoping I can say more positive things about Firestorm's other two heat finals.

Number 46

Mace 2 is wearing Suicidal Tendencies as a hat. Your argument is invalid.

So, fun fact....I may be a whisker biased in this one. Series 3 was the first series I ever saw, and as such, Mace 2 vs Suicidal Tendencies was the first heat final I ever saw. As far as an introductory heat....it was alright. A few breakdowns here and there to sour it a bit, but that's not what this list is about.

As a heat final, Mace and Suicidal Tendencies' clash is actually pretty well all-rounded. There's nothing really stand-out about it, but there's nothing abhorrent about it either - it's just really solid all around and there's nothing really bad about it. For the series that introduced a full round of combat, something that clearly not all the teams were prepared for, this in itself is impressive.

Was it obvious that Mace 2 was by far the favourite? Maybe. But the fight itself ended up being more of a dominating performance from Mace rather than the formality it should have been in theory. The fight also goes the distance and doesn't have anything that really interferes with it, so that's also a bonus by Series 3 standards.

Number 45

This is actually what happened when Bulldog Breed learnt it would be fighting Hypno-Disc. Yes, I went there!

One thing I've quickly noticed whilst making this list is that the quality of a heat final does not necessarily have anything to do with the quality of the robot(s) taking part. It could legit have two really strong robots, or even one of Robot Wars' superstars taking part, but it doesn't mean a thing if the battle itself isn't that good.

Take, for example, Hypno-Disc. It's a robot that has had many classic fights across its runs, most of them amongst the best of their respective series. Its heat finals, however, are not amongst them. As we've seen so far, its heat finals have ranged a tentative clash hindered by various issues, to a OHKO where the instigator isn't clear to an absolute farce. Of Hypno-Disc's heat finals, Hypno-Disc vs Bulldog Breed 3 is its best, and even then I think there's perhaps a bit too much hype going on about Hypno-Disc tearing out Bulldog Breed's link. It's not exactly like it's the first time a robot has lost a battle through losing its link, and Bulldog Breed had already been crippled anyway - it lost the battle long before the link went.

Nevertheless, the fight is still quite solid. It actually starts off with Bulldog Breed as the aggressor, managing to throw Hypno-Disc quite heavily in the direction of the wall, but not over, as Hypno's Disc manages to keep it upright. But Hypno-Disc recovers and lands a solid hit on the side of Bulldog Breed, completely damaging the drive, before another hit manages to get the infamous link-ripped-out scenario. Feeling merciful, Hypno-Disc then pushes the now completely dead Bulldog Breed into the pit and secures a place in the semi-final that I must admit I didn't think it was going to get - I was positive going into that fight that Bulldog Breed would win.

This is hardly Hypno-Disc's best fight, but it's still its best heat final. When all is said and done, 45 isn't too bad. At least it's not 103...

Number 44

I'm sure someone out there is getting a kick out of seeing two robot's undercarriages. This is the internet, after all

This is the perfect example of why I'm really trying my best not to rely too heavily on personal bias. It's certainly a factor, yes, but I try not to make it the main one.

For me, personally, there's a lot about Apollo vs Storm 2 I'm not all that keen on. The main one being, of course, that it involves Storm 2 who by this stage is a shell of its former self. The Storm 2 I like blazes across the arena, slamming you into the wall at mach-speeds. This one is basically a slow doorstop. There is also a little bit of deadspace and, in hindsight, it's frustrating to know that this is the only time Apollo, the first reboot champion, ever actually won its heat.

But as a heat final, it's really, really solid and I have to respect that. For what it's worth, both robots are quite aggressive and both had their moments on top. Both performed really well and, given the pace of Storm 2 these days, it was hardly sluggish. Also, an attack on a House Robot is always nice to see.

But what really pushes this fight further up for me is the ending. After seeing two fights on the trot with Apollo suffering from one problem or another, it doesn't just fix those demons, it doesn't just beat Storm 2, it throws it clean out of the arena - the only robot to ever KO Storm 2 on the show. It's not perfect by any means, but as a battle, it's still really rather good. Plus, it's one of the few heat finals from Series 8 or 9 which is actually better than the Round Robin clash between the same two robots...in that aspect, it's the best of these fights. And yet, it's not the best heat final of Series 8, not quite.

Number 43

Times have changed

I have to be brutally honest - the BBC made a massive mistake airing Robot Wars on BBC Choice. I understand they needed something to make their new big channel really stand out, but the problem is they ended up airing five episodes a week long before BBC2 even aired one in a given week. Thus leading to the issue that Series 5 and 6 were ridiculously easy to spoil. I was a kid back then, cut me some slack.

I ended up watching the last heat of Series 6 on Choice in a very, very deliberate attempt to prevent myself from being spoiled any further, because I was essentially watching it at the same time as the spoilers. Thus I ended up watching Bigger Brother vs Disc-O-Inferno without knowing the results beforehand. And it's a fight that I honestly thought Disc-O-Inferno would win.

Suffice to say, I underestimated Bigger Brother's upgrades. It was just relentless, pressuring Disc-O into getting caught by Sir Killalot and then trapping it there, before trying several times to throw it out of the arena. It just didn't give Disc-O a chance to breathe, something I feel may have been its biggest issue when it faced Hypno-Disc the year before and eventually forced Disc-O to pit itself.

It's not perfect, by any means. The biggest issue of course being that Disc-O-Inferno's flywheel stopped so early on, removing any chance it had. But it was still a very commanding performance on Bigger Brother's part.

Number 42

Done!

OK, this should hopefully dispel any and all concerns that fights where there is absolutely no damage can't be ranked higher than fights where there is plenty of it.

There is nothing to Dantomkia vs IG-88 that I can really talk about, so instead I shall indulge you with another true story...when I first watched the heat, I thought this wouldn't be the heat final. Y'know how Series 7 showed clips of the next fights before the advert breaks? They didn't do that with Dantomkia and IG-88, and I was legit concerned one of them would have to withdraw.

And then the fight happened, and I saw why. And y'know what? I wouldn't have it any other way. I expect to see this pretty high on your OOTA ranking, Jim.

Number 41

"Sorry little guy, beating you up is like stepping on a kitten"

Might as well talk about this one too, since it also didn't last very long. In fact, until Dantomkia vs IG-88, Cunning Plan vs Demolisher held the record for shortest heat final. Only 14 seconds passed in this fight before Demolisher was left upside down, after Cunning Plan, after a little bit of baiting, stepped on the gas and rammed it over.

But is it REALLY better than Dantomkia's years later?

Well, it's certainly nowhere near as flashy, that's for certain. But much like with the whole Killertron/Technophobic over Panic Attack/Disruptor discussion earlier, I think the whole issue here is context. For what it's worth, fights in the early series were rarely decided by a quick knockout - if a fight was quick, it was through a breakdown. This was one of two super-quick fights in Series 1, and the faster of the two. It held the record for the shortest ever fight until very late in Series 3 for context. And much like with Dantomkia over IG-88, this was just pure domination on Cunning Plan's part, it has to be said. Of course it's not AS flashy. They're featherweights. There's always going to be that slight disadvantage.

That being said, I will admit I did need to revise my score for this fight, since I felt I had ranked it perhaps a bit TOO high. Again, a moment can only carry a fight so far.

Number 40

Insert Tom Scream here

Here's a question for you - when is the result of a fight an obvious formality yet also a massive surprise?

When it's a Razer fight in the classic series, that's what.

If it had been literally any other robot, I doubt the outcome of what would have been Razer vs Rick would have been in any doubt. It shouldn't have been any doubt anyway, since Rick had only gotten to this stage after getting its butt kicked by Suicidal Tendencies, itself a crusher. I would have loved to have seen Razer vs Suicidal Tendencies, BTW, I think this fight may have been higher if that were the case. But of course, the problem here is, well, it's Razer. After losing heat after heat after heat due to something going wrong, a breakdown at this stage is to be expected. It's that little nagging feeling in the back of your skull.

To be fair, Razer's fight against Rick is the least impressive of its fight in the heats. That much shouldn't be up for debate. It's more or less your standard Razer fight, showing a nice amount of damage, good aggression on Razer's part, kudos to Rick for trying but ultimately it's not even remotely close. And yet, regardless of how you feel about Razer, this heat final is a significant victory in and of itself. Razer has finally done it. It's the same ball park as when Behemoth beat Apollo in Series 10 (more on that later, of course). The curse has been broken.

And then of course, Razer decides to attack the House Robots. The biggest target it could possibly find. That in itself will always be hilarious.

Number 39

Maybe another case of what we remember it for

There was a massive benefit for me watching all 105 heat finals again regardless of whether they were any good or not - namely it helped remind me of exactly what happened in some points that were actually quite forgettable. This ended up being the case with Firestorm 4 vs X-Terminator.

Before watching the fight again, I honestly found it rather forgettable. I remembered Firestorm bundling X-Terminator over and subsequently taking on Shunt the first time around and that was about it. But watching it back again, no, there's actually a lot more going for it than I gave it credit for. It's actually quite a tactical fight, with X-Terminator actually starting off being able to outwedge Firestorm. They managed to push each other around, once nearly into Shunt and both nearly fell into the pit when Firestorm tried to shove X-Terminator down. That all happened before the aforementioned bundle which was a lot more extravagant than I remember it being. Overall, it's a good fight.

You know what it isn't? A good fight between two fully-working robots. It's clear right from the get-go that X-Terminator's axe isn't working properly and that really hinders both its performance and the overall score of the fight. If the axe had been working...well, I'm fairly confident Firestorm would have won anyway, but I'd like to think it would have lasted longer. I feel like we were missing quite a bit there.

Number 38

Splinter the dentist

I've found whilst making this list that, often, there's nothing wrong with a fight at all. It's often a very good fight - its only weakness is that it just can't stand up to other, more exciting fights.

Splinter vs Eric is a perfect example of this. For its time, it's a good fight, certainly in the upper half of the Series 4 Heat Finals. There's objectively nothing negative about the fight at all. There's no breakdown, nothing drags needlessly....maybe you could argue that the robots are being a little bit too tentative, but that's just down to how they operate as robots. Splinter largely dominates the fight, but Eric manages to get a couple of good lifts in, so it doesn't feel like a formality. Both robots are aggressive, both robots perform well, it's overall a good fight.

It just lacks....well, something. Something that could really propel it above the other fights. Something like, oh, I dunno, a great knockout, a come-from-behind victory, a really tense tussle, anything really. Splinter's heat win is good, just lacking in anything to really make it stand out.

Aside the fact that, arguably, Eric won at the end of the day because...well....reasons.

Number 37

Sting vs Stinger, technically

Is it just me, or is Series 5 rather....well, forgettable? I mean, it's not entirely forgettable, there's a decent amount of really solid fights, but the problem is, they're often surrounded by really bad ones. In addition, they're rarely ever consistently in the same place. Most of Series 5's best fights were in the semi-finals or final itself.

Heat Finals, for example, are just not one of Series 5's strong points. Most of them were actually rather disappointing, and even when they were good, they were easily overshadowed for reasons that are often hard to explain. For example, S3 vs Stinger has plenty going for it. Both robots show great aggression, the battle is fast paced, S3 ultimately dominates it in a really good way, living up to the hype it set itself in its earlier battles and, honestly, I really enjoyed it.

And yet, I really struggle to remember it too well without going back and watching it directly. Both of S3's previous fights against Plunderbird 5 and Mousetrap were far more memorable for very different reasons. S3 certainly put up a great fight and deserved the win, but this is still a fight I'd struggle to really remember even though I know I should. Also, it kinda bugs me that we don't see Stinger actually get knocked out...the camera cuts to the team, then when it cuts back, it's already stopped. Something like that could be easily mistaken for a breakdown.

Number 36

FIRE! ABANDON THE BUILDING!

The next three fights were really hard to separate. They ended up dead equal in terms of actual points and were really difficult to order in terms of how I liked them or not. What struck me the most though is the fact that two of those fights were really tense battles that had moments where they could have gone either way, whereas the other was a formality right from the get-go, and based on my scoring system, that has to put the fight that was a formality at the bottom of the three.

But really, the fact that it was a formality is literally the only negative I have to say about Atomic vs S.M.I.D.S.Y., which I feel was far better than their little tussle in the first round of the heat. It's certainly Atomic's second best fight behind its subsequent fight against M2, that's for sure. I did see S.M.I.D.S.Y. trying to be tactical and it actually did manage to get a couple of decent attacks in, but really, this was a masterclass on what Atomic could do. One flip spun S.M.I.D.S.Y. over, another threw it back over its "shoulder" and then there's that final flip that propelled S.M.I.D.S.Y. right out of the arena in an attack that Jim has covered far better in his own countdown (shameless plug: read it!). It's certainly a spectacular OOTA and a fitting end to a really fast-paced, solid battle.

Also, S.M.I.D.S.Y.'s "tactics" before and after the fight were very funny. Just thought I'd get that out there.

Number 35

St Agro! No begging at the dinner table!

Like I said in my previous entry, the next two battles were extremely tense. They were battles that could have gone either way and in each fight, both robots suffered during the clash. There's no formalities here - this is just a straight up scrappy-brawl.

But how do you even begin figuring out which one is "better"? Well, lets just get this right out of the way when I say there is absolutely NOTHING OBJECTIVELY WRONG with St Agro vs Ceros. Far, far from it. This is a battle with a lot going on and ultimately it got a high score in both aggression and robot performance, as well as for enjoyment.

It starts off as a somewhat back-and-forth flipper clash, with St Agro perhaps gaining the upper-hand. It also does have a moment I feel to be quite amusing, in St Agro flipping itself up and then hanging in that position for a while before falling back over. But it's the drama that really makes this fight - when the battle shifts towards the pit, there are moments when both robots nearly fall in. St Agro very nearly loses it twice - once when Ceros flips it right over the edge of the pit, then another when Matilda destroys its wheel. It eventually manages to get Ceros stuck on its rear end and win the fight after a really brutal brawl.

So, yeah, it's a great fight - but why do I rank it below the alternative?

Number 34

Dominator 2 - Ace Attorney: Turnabout Battle

The answer is simple...the alternative was more satisfying and left nothing to doubt.

The only real negative I have with St Agro vs Ceros is when Ceros lost drive to one side. After that, it felt like the battle started to drag, like they wanted St Agro to finish Ceros off and it just had too many issues doing it. St Agro's escape from the pit was a great moment, but I can't help but wonder what would happen if it had gone in. Would it be considered out? Or would the judges say Ceros was technically immobile?

There's no such doubt with Dominator 2 vs Hydra, however. Series 6 may not have been Dominator's best performance overall, but it showed that you just couldn't count it out. Certainly this would have been an honourable mention in my Top 10 Turnabouts list had Hydra's strong start lasted just a bit longer. Because it did start very strong, flipping Dominator over and really pressuring it. But Dominator, as it does, has the knack of landing that one axe blow in the wrong place and it really crippled Hydra.

Whilst it may be a shame that we lost Hydra, you can't take away from Dominator's performance. It didn't give up, it fought back and did what it needed to do to win. I've talked about this fight before, so it's hard for me to be too original, but when scoring it, I really couldn't find a proper negative...in fact, it managed to score this well just on its own merits. It's just a very very good fight all around, and certainly one of the best of Series 6.

Number 33

Can't let Recyclopse have all the fun, can we?

When I went into this, I felt fairly certain that the heat finals of Series 1 and 2 would be very low down in the list. After all, things improve as time goes on, that's common sense. But I realised that this wouldn't make for a very fair list, which is why I decided early on that I would need to look at each heat final on its own merit and at the absolute most, rank them based on fights from their own series. This has resulted in quite a few Series 1 and 2 fights being quite a lot higher up than I initially expected, and I'm OK with that.

T.R.A.C.I.E. vs Skarab is not a close fight by any means. Skarab doesn't even perform that well and it's a clear formality. But good lord is it entertaining. For a Series 1 fight, it's actually very brutal. It gets off to a slow start, but as soon as they get within range, T.R.A.C.I.E. just slams on the acceleration and punctures Skarab's sides, eventually ripping off part of its exterior. Skarab never really recovered from that and then T.R.A.C.I.E. decided to entertain itself by fighting the House Robots...and actually coming out on top. Honestly, I feel T.R.A.C.I.E. put up one of the most aggressive displays of any robot in Series 1 in that heat final alone. Certainly made up for its poor performance in the Gauntlet and Trial. It was clearly a robot made for combat.

Number 32

A screenshot simply doesn't capture the pace. Imagine blur-lines...

Whether I like a certain fight or not may vary, but throughout Robot Wars' history, one thing has been fairly consistent...I have always appreciated a fight with a good pace to it. If the robots are fast and actively using that to their advantage, then there is a very very good chance that I will enjoy the fight. It doesn't even matter if the robots don't even have much in the way of weapons, I'll still likely enjoy it.

Take, for example, Thing 2. It's a fast, nippy robot with little in the way of weapons and the tendency to wheelie, but its speed and wedge managed to provide a couple of really entertaining fast-paced battles. Thing 2 vs All Torque was a really good, back and forth battle, and one that really should have been the heat-final. I'm not saying Thing 2 vs Cerberus isn't bad, though, I'm just saying I think the previous battle is slightly better...but the actual heat final is still really good for Series 3 standard, and overall really.

There's not really much to say about it, with neither having much in the way of weapons, it's just really fast-paced. Both rushing around the arena, both being very effective at pushing the other and both putting on a really good show. Ultimately Thing 2 manages to win the ground clearance battle which was pretty much a given and then with one really strong drive (complete with spin) not only manages to damage Cerberus, but also manages to overturn it. The spirit of Roadblock lives on, you could say.

Number 31

Maybe in retrospect this fight was obvious, but at the time...

I had a really tough time separating the next four battles. All of them are really solid fights, even more impressive considering all of them were from Series 4 or earlier. The fact that the one that ultimately just fails to make the top 30 is from Series 2 should speak volumes, but ultimately I feel it got this high on bonuses rather than the fight itself, at least compared to its other competitors. Nevertheless, the bonuses given are certainly justified, at least for its time.

I feel in a way, Mace vs Chaos does lose a bit of its suspense and surprise on rewatch and knowing just what these robots do. Chaos was so jittery, so high off the ground and its flipping arm so narrow and limited in range that a fight against the better controlled, more stable and higher-reach weapon of Mace really could have gone no other way, even if Chaos had added its "ears" to help it self-right. But for its time, this was a massive surprise. Of course Chaos was the favourite - it was a former grand finalist against a rookie. In fact, I would go as far as to argue that this was Robot Wars' first ever shock result...you could make that claim for Recyclopse beating Mortis in the previous series, but considering Mortis wasn't working properly, that's hardly a fair assessment.

Even beyond that, you have to give Mace credit for essentially dominating the fight, taking advantage of the fact that it did have the lower ground clearance to push Chaos into the PPZ and then grind away with its flail once it had gotten stuck. These are two very similar robots, but Mace happened to have all the advantages needed when it mattered. Even if it hadn't been forced to rely on Matilda, I'm still confident it would have won easily.

Number 30

It's hard to appreciate just how large Roadblock is until you see a shot like this

When I told myself I would be ranking every single heat final of the UK series, I had several thoughts going through my head. Namely "why are you doing this to yourself? There are so many easier lists you could be making. You still haven't done that Top 10 Knockouts list you said you were going to, and if you really wanted to do a heat final list, then surely the top 22 international heat finals would be so much easier", but I also went in fully expecting the earlier series to feature quite low, even the good ones.

This isn't on virtue of every fight in the early series being terrible of course, it's more a virtue that you'd think the newer fights would just be better. But watching them all again has lead to some really surprising thoughts - like, for example, Series 1 has an extremely mixed bag. Three of its heat finals are really good, each scoring over 20 points. The other three are terrible, failing to get even ten. I suppose because I watched all the fights in order, Roadblock vs Killertron was always going to be the fight I'd be using to compare every fight in the long run, and in retrospect I do question if it was a good idea to have THIS fight be the one to end the very first heat of Robot Wars, on virtue that it's greater than every other one that series had, but then I think that Bodyhammer vs REALI-T could have been aired first and I think we dodged a bullet there.

It may not be flashy compared to more modern battles, but you simply cannot deny the simple yet surprisingly brutal way that Roadblock completely manhandled Killertron. It was always clear that Killertron had the better weapon, yet Roadblock made it look like a feather and just pushed it around with ease. I always thought Killertron was a large machine, but Roadblock made it look tiny in comparison. And the flashiest weapon in the wars is not going to be any help when you're being carried around by a BFO wedge who is doing everything it can to turn you over, which Roadblock eventually but clinically does. That was certainly the knockout Robot Wars needed to start its surprisingly long career.

I'm sure nobody will argue that Roadblock vs Killertron is the best heat final of Series 1, although I'm sure a few will argue that it should be ranked higher considering how important it was. To each their own, but I hope that making the top 30 should still be considered high enough. Just remember, the best heat final of Series 9 didn't even make the top 60. It's far, FAR from the worst even of the best.

Number 29

This reminds me of a Mario Party minigame for some reason...

So, not for the first time in this list, I find myself going back over one of my previous lists - once again, it is my Top 10 Turnabouts list, which I personally feel is one of my best to date. Well, if you can't praise your own work, who will? Anyway, going into that list, I was absolutely positive that X-Terminator 2 vs Behemoth would be on that list. I remembered it primarily as a great comeback on X-Terminator's part. It had been flipped over by Behemoth several times during the beginning, but was able to nag away at Behemoth and come strong in the end. It certainly has turnabout written all over it, but looking back, I realised something - it was far more one-sided in X-Terminator's favour than I thought.

Yes, Behemoth certainly has the stronger start and does perform some solid flips on X-Terminator - about two or three of them. However, what stopped me from adding it to the Turnabout list was simply that Behemoth's dominance over the battle simply wasn't long enough. Looking back over the fight, X-Terminator was getting its attacks in a lot more frequently than Behemoth was, and really, Behemoth didn't really do much after that early spurt - if anything, it seemed to run itself down by the end.

It's still a really good fight, though and a very impressive display from X-Terminator. The team easily made the right choice in going for the flipper rather than the axe, and the persistent nagging paid off.

Number 28

After a long and grueling encounter, this is the result

Once again, it was very difficult for me to split these two entries. In many ways they're both very similar - a robot starts off on the backfoot, before coming strong at the end. The reason I ranked Panic Attack vs S.M.I.D.S.Y. higher than X-Terminator vs Behemoth is twofold. First, it was a very even fight for a good long while, and second, it was a very active battle, with neither robot really slowing down.

Statistics aside, I would argue that Series 4 was Panic Attack's best year. None of its battles were bad and neither were any of its performances. Even its losses to Stinger and Mortis were really good, with Panic Attack doing just enough to have a very strong chance of actually winning those fights. Its fight against S.M.I.D.S.Y. was no exception either. It was so well controlled throughout and played very smartly...keeping the forklifts facing towards S.M.I.D.S.Y. at all times and waiting, very patiently, for the right moment to come along. And once it found just the right moment, it managed to hook its forks in the gap between S.M.I.D.S.Y.'s wheels and eventually get it into the pit.

But Panic Attack didn't win its heat final scoring this high on its own. S.M.I.D.S.Y. has to deserve extreme credit here too, because it really made Panic Attack work for its victory and not once did it give the former champion an easy time. I'd be tempted to argue that, up until it got caught in Panic Attack's forklifts, it was just on top, but even then not by much. Whilst neither robot had the flashiest weapons, just the fact they kept it so close between each other is what makes this heat final so good.

Number 27

Not gonna lie, I like this flip more than the actual OOTA

I know there are people out there who often don't like a heat final not because it's bland or a formality, but because it's predictable. But I don't mean predictable as in the outcome is obvious, but the fact that the actual match-up itself is obvious. Like, it was clear that those two robots from the get-go were going to be the heat finalists. I don't personally get that line of logic (to each their own, though) as the predictability of the heat-final line-up shouldn't affect the quality of the heat final itself. Sometimes they're good. Sometimes they just aren't.

Lets be honest here - nearly all of Series 10's heat finals were arguably "predictable". Heck, you could say ALL of them were predictable depending on how you felt about Iron-Our-Flipper-IS-Working-Honest-Awe before the heat actually began. But the quality changes differently. I'm pretty sure everyone was positive the Heat C final would be Rapid vs Terrorhurtz, and surprise surprise, it was. But the fight itself is considered to be one of Series 10's best by the fanbase and considering how many good fights Series 10 had, that's high praise.

Now, obviously it's hard to argue that Rapid deserved the win. In a way, this was the team's redemption story, after being forced to withdraw from the series prior. I'm sure there must have been people willing to route for it even over the old mainstay of Terrorhurtz. It's a tough opponent to be sure, with a mixed success rate with flippers...and Rapid played that fight nearly perfectly. Yeah, the shields didn't really last, but Rapid fought in a very controlled and calculating manner. It didn't try to flip Terrorhurtz at every given moment like you'd normally get with a flipper. It was tactical...flipping only when Terrorhurtz got close to the arena wall and pretty much letting the arena do its work. It worked out, certainly, with one standout for me being a massive flip that very nearly got Terrorhurtz out of the arena - which honestly I feel was more spectacular than the killer flip itself.

I do wonder though what would have happened if Rapid had missed too many of these chances, though? Obviously with Terrorhurtz continually axing away, it would be scoring a lot of aggression points, something I don't think Rapid would have had a chance of getting back had its OOTA-flips not worked. Although it was quite clear by the end that Terrorhurtz' axe was running low on gas, meaning the killer flip was inevitable - really the only downside to the fight as a whole. Terrorhurtz should have waited for a good hit....

Number 26

Can we just focus our attention on this really strong pie-in-the-face attack for just one moment? Please?

.....I've been dreading this. I never thought I'd have to start a ranking with a sentence that makes it clear that I'm opening a massive Kan-of-Wyrms and I'm not comfortable with that at all. Somehow, I've got to justify why I think one of the most disliked battles of Series 4 - heck, of all time - is in the upper quarter of my personal best heat finals list. But before you blast me with goodness knows what sorts of rude comments and whatnot, lets just calm down and let me explain why I have ranked this battle so high.

I watched Firestorm 2 vs The Morgue several times over, just to be sure I was seeing it all right. I kinda have to. Nobody ever seems to talk about the fight itself. They only ever talk about the ending. I'll get to that in a moment, but really, the fight itself certainly wasn't as explosive as some of Firestorm's many other fights...but that was the thing. Firestorm couldn't afford to be explosive. The Morgue was one of the worst designs it could have faced because if it didn't get the flip just right, Morgue would have just rolled back over. What followed was an extremely tactical battle between both machines. Firestorm was trying to get Morgue into just the right position to flip it, whilst Morgue, having learnt its lesson from the opening round, was trying to keep its forks pointed towards Firestorm at all times. The best attacks were from Firestorm, of course, with the real stand out one being where it gets underneath Morgue, flips it up slightly, spins around, then stops with its wedge right underneath Morgue as it lands, before barreling it straight into Matilda's face. Yet it was only through the various rewatches that I realised that Morgue had been quite aggressive too, at least twice managing to breach Firestorm's side and push it towards the arena wall.

But no, nobody wants to know about that, because they hate the fight and all because of that ending, where Firestorm pushes The Morgue towards the pit, drives in itself, but the judges award it the win because Morgue is pitted on a technicality. Everyone keeps ranting on and on about how Firestorm clearly shouldn't have won....and yet nobody has ever really given a convincing, or even logical, reason why in my book. I won't try to refute EVERY single point, but lets just ask ourselves some questions. Was The Morgue stranded over the pit? Yes, clearly. And what were the rules regarding being stranded over the pit? That if all your wheels are over the pit, it counts as being pitted, therefore according to the rules, Morgue was pitted. Did Firestorm drive into the pit? Absolutely, no denying that. But look at all the other fights where a robot drove into the pit whilst pitting another robot - from Crushtacean vs Corkscrew to Heavy Metal vs M.R. Speed Squared. In all those cases, the robot who was pushed in first lost...like The Morgue did against Firestorm.

Everyone says that ending was controversial, but I say it was dramatic...which is a big deal for the series where Robot Wars was arguably starting to hit its stride. It may have contributed rather highly to this fight's score, but considering every other fight left made more of an impact, I don't feel right ranking it any higher. Now promise we can still be friends....please?

Number 25

This certainly looks like a Fantasy Fight

I feel like this is going to end up upsetting a few people, again.

I've made no secret on the blog about the fact that I've found most of the heat finals from Series 8 and 9 to be rather underwhelming. In nearly every single case, the issue was that we'd already seen a far better fight from the two robots already. After the flack I got for Apollo vs Storm 2 (which isn't that low, guys), I must say I do find their league battle slightly more satisfying than their heat final battle. Luckily, what I consider to be the best heat final of Series 8...and indeed the entire of the first two reboot series...didn't have that problem. Namely because this was the first meeting between the two robots.

Pulsar vs Gabriel is unique in many ways. First of all just for setting. Pulsar had already lost in the first round, but was reinstated after Chompalot took too much damage fighting Gabriel, effectively meaning it took Chompalot's place. Since Gabriel had already fought Chompalot, it meant that the two robots went into their heat final having never fought each other, so there was no way of knowing how a clash like this would go. The end result was...certainly interesting.

"An angry ferret fighting a giraffe" is certainly an apt description. It's a fight that shouldn't really work, as neither robot is ideally designed to take the other on, with Pulsar being too small to hit and Gabriel being too big to easily attack. And yet, it works. What we get is a very close, aggressive battle with both robots managing to land some pretty strong hits on each other. It's also quite entertaining too, but then again, Gabriel being in the arena will always have that going for it.

It has its off-moments, sure. There's little damage to look at, and Pulsar's continual reliability issues really prevent me from ranking it any higher. But beyond that, it's a fun little spurt that could have gone either way for me.

Number 24

I hate to take credit away from Terrorhurtz, but damn this attack was brutal!

Y'know, it's honestly quite surprising that despite all the technological improvements and whatnot, a lot of the reboot heat finals just didn't compare to many of the classic heat finals. Although I guess also not too surprising at the same time given the many, many issues I've already mentioned. I do feel that some of the heat finals we got in, say, Series 6, would have been nowhere near as good if the robots were forced to fight each other again later. Seeing another Terrorhurtz vs Panic Attack just wouldn't have had the same appeal.

Really, the only negative I can see from this fight, and the only reason it isn't any higher, was that it was a self-inflicted formality. It was obvious that Terrorhurtz was going to win and Panic Attack never went ahead with their plan to remove its side-skirts which may have helped with the mobility. But heavens-to-betsy, this heat final was BRUTAL!

The only thing remotely low in the scoring system was "Closeness", because lets be realistic here. Controversial opinion, but out of ALL the heat finals of Series 6, this was the most damaging. Terrorhurtz pretty much annihilated Panic Attack's top, peeling it away gradually and simply not letting up, showing all sorts of aggression and pretty much dominating the match far more than it had any right to. Beforehand, it was only really Dominator 2 and Shunt that were still reliably causing that amount of damage. And Shunt couldn't even do anything to Panic Attack after Terrorhurtz had been over it.

Add to this a brutal blow from Matilda, throwing the lid clean out of the arena, and it brings a very satisfying end to a brutal battle, especially if you're like me and nowhere near a fan of Panic Attack Gold. To be fair on Kim Davies, his little antics with trying to avoid the Drop Zone were admittedly amusing. I would have ranked it higher if it weren't for the fact that Panic Attack just didn't really work properly. I mean, it's not like a completely mangled robot CAN'T keep fighting....

Number 23

Just remember, Napalm was otherwise losing this fight so badly it was being split apart.

Surprise surprise, here at 23 we have the perfect example of what I was talking about last time, if any of you actually still remember, about a fight where a robot is completely mangled and yet still manages to keep fighting. It also made me appreciate a certain infamous competitor a lot more.

I've often stated that Napalm being badly put together is more-or-less the whole point. It isn't meant to be flashy. The team itself don't even take it seriously. But anyone who says it's the worst robot ever, first of all, needs to be reminded of far, FAR worse competitors, even in the REBOOT, and second of all, needs to rewatch Steg-O-Saw-Us vs Napalm. Yes, it's a fight it loses, pretty badly, but you can't tell me for a second it doesn't perform better than a majority of the other heat final fallers of Series 3.

This is another fight I feel that many people seem to remember the first massive slam from Steg-O-Saw-Us and little else. Yes, Napalm does get badly crumpled. Yes, Steg-O-Saw-Us then manages to slam it into Sir Killalot's lance, resulting in a Napalm kebab. Yes, by the end of the fight Napalm's front is dragging on the floor. The fight isn't close by any means. But just look at Napalm...after all this, it is still powering on, fighting to the bitter end. And despite all the damage, it manages to, twice, catch Steg in a vulnerable position and pin it up against the wall. I could name at least 20 robots who would have died after the first slam and I wouldn't be surprised if there were over 100. You have to give Napalm all the credit in the world here.

Beyond this, the fight has so much going for it. It was well-paced, both Steg and Napalm performed very well both were really aggressive and, surprisingly, it was a very damaging fight. It's probably because it IS Napalm, but the fact it got so badly wrecked from being slammed against the wall is still surprising. Up to that point, I'd argue that was some of the most damage we'd seen from ANY robot....of course, this was the heat immediately before Hypno-Disc made its debut.

Enjoy the accolade while it lasts, I guess.

Number 22

(insert Benny Hill theme here)

So far I've mentioned quite a few really good heats that had very disappointing heat finals. It's something that inevitably happens, unfortunately - Heat 2 of Series 10 is easily one of the best of all time, but its terrible heat final lets it down. So, for a change, how about we talk about a bad heat with a really REALLY good heat final?

Heat B of Series 7 was...well, not good. It had many many issues. Least of all the fact that Terrorhurtz, the obvious favourite to win the heat, wasn't even allowed into the building in the first place, and everyone else was relatively weak or an unknown in comparison. The first fight could have been a good little clash, but that was scuppered when arguably the two favourites fused together the entire match and did nothing. Then, with the second fight's best robot not allowed in, three mid-tier spinners knocked around until one broke, leaving Round 2 moreorless a formality. And that's not even taking into the awful Featherweight "fight" which was really just an excuse for the three heaviest house robots to brutalise the likes of Cheese 2 and Sickness and Minimal or whatever their names actually were.

Luckily, there is light at the end of the tunnel in the form of The Grim Reaper vs Big Nipper and, if I were to be ranking this in terms of closeness, I'd argue that it was one of the narrowest heat finals of the Seventh Wars. I've watched the fight back a few times and it really is a close battle. Both Grim Reaper and Big Nipper have their moments on top and it is extremely back and forth all around. I don't envy the judges at all here...Grim Reaper ultimately won due to being slightly more aggressive, but it really could have gone either way.

I think my favourite part of the whole battle is when the brawl moves into Cassius Chrome's CPZ. Grim Reaper manages to flip Big Nipper over to a point where the latter gets caught in the former's flipper, and then Big Nipper uses its own lifter to try and push back on Grim Reaper whilst trying to get away from Cassius Chrome. Maybe that's what won it, who can say? A great fight overall...sadly let down only by the fact that I couldn't really give it any bonus points. Nothing really stood out, it was just a really good fight on its own merits. To come 22nd without any bonus score is quite the achievement, and considering the dire heat it was in, it should be proud.

Number 21

Just as well this wasn't the actual impaling shot. That would have been a bit risque....

You ever see a fight and wonder whether the outcome was a massive surprise or one to be completely expected? Generally most fights should really be one or the other, but I guarantee you will find a lot of fights where the favourite going into the fight is not always easy to figure out. Sometimes the robot that is officially the favourite is realistically the weaker of the two, or has a specific weakness to the other robot - look at Razer and Pussycat for an example to this. Razer may very well be the technical favourite, but Pussycat's weapon is the worst type it could possibly face.

I bring this up because this is exactly the situation faced with Tornado vs Gemini. Depending on who you ask, it's either a massive upset, or it's a dominant performance by the clearly stronger robot. Clearly both robots were by and far the best in their heat, but everyone and their grandmothers were focusing entirely on Gemini, what with it being Robot Wars' first clusterbot and all. They were already discussing a fight in the semi-finals against Chaos 2. Yet I would argue overall that Tornado had put up the more impressive performance going into the heat final. And, I would also argue, it showed.

The fight is over very quickly all things considering. Tornado immediately focuses its attention on one half of Gemini and aims it right for one of the arena wall spikes. It is a very deliberate drive, and once it got that one Gemini half to that spike, it adjusted its position and then kept ramming it. That screenshot I've posted? It's just one of the rams, but it's not even the significant one. Gemini struggles to get away from the spike, and as it moves away, it drops into a non-wheelie position just as Tornado comes in for another charge. This causes Gemini to be literally impaled through its rear on the spike....Vlad the Impaler (the actual person, not the Battlebot) would be proud.

It's a great finishing blow, but I can't rank this any higher because, right after this, Tornado loses drive to one side, seemingly at random. After such a great attack, it just starts to die...if anything it was lucky it managed to kill that half of Gemini when it did. This was another four-way tie on points, and since this was the only fight of those four where the winner randomly died, I had to mark it down. Still a remarkable takedown though.

So, I ask again...who was the favourite going in?

Number 20

Well, that doesn't look awkward

Funnily enough, the next two fights are also cases where the favourite going in shouldn't have been obvious, although in these cases there was clear justification that the non-seed should, at least based on previous performance, have been far stronger. When you look at how we got to 13 Black vs Stinger, it should have been obvious that 13 Black performed far better going into the final. 13 Black not only immobilised Stinger in their first melee, but also came out of its second battle far better (dead disc vs dead wheel...this isn't BattleBots, after all). Stinger may have been the seed, but it was really up against it from the get-go.

I don't think I would have ranked this fight higher if it had ended in a KO, somehow. Instead, we got another really solid fight that feels like an earlier version of Grim Reaper vs Big Nipper. When all is said and done, the action is a little more reserved than some of their other clashes, but it's an otherwise really strong performance from both machines. 13 Black manages to cause a bit of damage to Stinger, an impressive feat in and of itself, but Stinger keeps going really strong throughout the entire fight. It's a fight where 13 Black feels like it's in control for a good majority of the fight, but one where you can sense that Stinger could still land a come-from-behind victory if played just right. This isn't like Atomic vs S.M.I.D.S.Y. by any means.

Really, I think the only thing that really hurts 13 Black vs Stinger is its lack of any real highlights that could potentially boost its score, much like with Grim Reaper vs Big Nipper. It's just a really good fight on its own merits. It's just unfortunate that everything else has a boost that help it out. Also, I found the following fights more satisfying overall. Just saying.

Number 19

A fight looks potentially dull? Make your own fun!

So Tornado vs Gemini and 13 Black vs Stinger were fights where the unseeded robots may have overshadowed the seeds' performance overall in the heat. The seed still should have been the favourite, but the non-seed had performed slightly better prior, you could argue. I don't think there was ANY doubt at all with Bigger Brother vs 3 Stegs 2 Heaven that the non-seed was far more impressive. It shouldn't be this high, yet its a fight that I always have fun watching because it turns a formality into a glorious mess.

On the one hand, you have Bigger Brother, a robot that effortlessly flipped both its prior opponents out of the arena with ease. On the other hand, you have 3 Stegs, a robot that barely made it out of its previous two fights alive. It's seeded, but if I told you Bigger Brother was the seed, I doubt you'd be surprised. At this stage, it should be a formality, and Bigger Brother should get 3 Stegs out of the arena effortlessly. And within the first few seconds, thanks to 3 Stegs getting itself stuck on the flame pit, it very nearly does. Bigger Brother props 3 Stegs up against the arena wall, adjusts itself, fires the flipper...and ends up freeing 3 Stegs.

And I'm glad it did, because this fight would be nowhere NEAR this high if it had ended there.

Unable to get 3 Stegs in another good position, Bigger Brother thus decides to vent its frustration on the House Robots. First, it flips Shunt over purely because he's there. Then it spends a good chunk of time pestering Sir Killalot. Clearly the Watts family are having the time of their life here, and Jonathan Pearce is also clearly enjoying their antics. There is a reason why this fight ended up on the Sir Killalot DVD, I can guarantee that. But eventually, Bigger Brother decides to put 3 Stegs out of its misery by propping it up on its side and then Sir Killalot decides to drop it down the pit...which ends in another glorious cluster-Foxic where literally no one is safe and Refbot is the only machine in the arena that comes out of this unscathed. It's just a joy to watch.

Number 18

This is all that needs to do this fight justice

One thing I've noticed watching modern robot combat shows, especially the modern BattleBots, is just how damaging the robots can be. Most modern day spinners can rip huge chunks off of their opponents, wheels can get sliced up and weapon arms snapped in half. It's really impressive....but something doesn't quite feel right in that aspect. Yes, I like seeing things get smashed up, but I miss seeing what I can only describe as "progressive" damage - damage that builds up over time. The kind where after the first hit, the opponent seems OK, but a few hits later, it's looking significantly worse for wear.

When S3 first showed up in Series 5, it demonstrated it could do some serious immediate damage, absolutely wrecking Plunderbird 5 to the point where one side was completely vapourised from existence. It's great and all, and yet I feel one of its best fights was its heat final the following series. S3 vs Shredder is the perfect example of progressive damage and it's very satisfying.

Heat D of that series has been stated as being one of the best of any series, and this is a good way to round it off. At first, it doesn't seem like either robot is causing much damage to each other, as Shredder runs headlong into S3's disc in an attempt to keep it from spinning up. They both seem to bounce off each other harmlessly. But when you look a little closer, you'll see that Shredder's left-hand disc has been disabled, which immediately puts it on the backfoot. S3 now keeps coming in, and this is what I mean by progressive damage. It's not causing massive damage, but you can see it building up. Each hit, the wheelguards are visibly breaking, the discs are becoming more warped, the chassis is noticeably bending. Shredder is suffering. It's still trying to fight on, but all that damage is starting to build up.

I must say, I do love the knockout blow. Shredder is spinning around in circles, trying to put S3 off, so S3 just stops and patiently waits. It's only once Shredder pauses for a moment that it surges in, disc spinning, and bowls Shredder up and onto its back. It's not flashy, but I love the clinical nature of it, waiting for Shredder to be at its most vulnerable before knocking it out. The subsequent mess of trying to pit an unco-operative Shredder, plus the revelation that a piece of Shredder's armour is now somehow stuck on the ceiling, just makes this all the more satisfying. We could do with more progressive damaging fights like these. BuggleBots has a few of these, if you ever want to check that out. Is this advertising?

Number 17

It almost looks like the robots' tyres are smoking. That's pretty cool. Is that excuse enough for the fight to be this high?

Ladies, gentlemen and non-binary people of all ages...my most controversial ranking yet.

So, lets talk about King Buxton vs All Torque for a moment. It's a fight that barely lasts a minute, tacked on like most other Series 2 heat finals. Barely anything happens. The two robots charge at each other, they jostle for position, lock horns and then King Buxton pushes All Torque into the pit. I have literally summed up the entire fight in one paragraph. How could this fight POSSIBLY be so high up when barely anything happened?

Simple answer...it got so much done in such little time.

From the start, both robots were being really aggressive. Both robots were going for a charge, but King B seemed to change its mind at the last moment and turned to the side. All Torque hits King B's wheel with a hefty slam, that leaves King B shaken, but also clearly leaves All Torque a little concussed. But both robots recover and they try to get at just the right angle to push each other from behind, but neither is able to get a good chance to do this. In the end, they give up, and clash head-on. It's a power-surge - 8-wheel drive between them, surging into each other. All Torque looks like it's winning this battle at first, but King B holds firm, then starts pushing back, taking All Torque to the pit and getting it stuck on the edge, allowing Killalot to finish the job.

I know this has nothing to do with the rankdown, but I feel one of Tornado's best fights was its battle with Terrorhurtz in the Extreme 2 Challenge Belt. I'd happily rank it as one of Tornado's best victories (potental spoilers for future list?), because of how clinically it performed despite Terrorhurtz trying to fight strongly. King Buxton's fight with All Torque feels like that, especially as I feel All Torque should have been the favourite going into the battle. Really, the only thing letting it down was the fact that King B DIDN'T get All Torque into the pit properly. For barely a minute's worth of battle, it delivers quite a lot, especially for Series 2.

Number 16

Robots driving awkwardly on top of other robots will never not be cool

So, I praised King Buxton's heat final against All Torque for getting so much done in such a short space of time. Funnily enough, this next fight also involves a lot happening between two robots who primarily use pushing to get their way, but this one lasts the full five minutes. And, funnily enough, this time King Buxton loses.

I guess I'm just a sucker for fights where both robots are continually in each other's faces. 101 vs King Buxton isn't about flashy weapons, it's just two very similar robots slugging it out. It's a lot like King Buxton vs All Torque, but this time there's no pit. But that hardly matters. Not when we can have both robots charge around the arena, ramming into each other continually and really demonstrating how effective they are. So much happens in this fight that it's really hard to keep up.

What makes this fight so good for me in regards to a rambot battle is both robots have very clear periods on top. 101 seems to get them more often, helped out a bit in the middle where King Buxton just stops for some reason near the flame pit, allowing 101 to give it some heavy slams, but Buxton gets its own fair share of attacks too. Several times it manages to ram into 101's side and push it around fairly convincingly. There are also several attacks where the robots meet head-on, but end up riding up the other's body (or even locomotion) because the angle's not right. That's how tightly matched these two machines are, and it makes for a great spectacle.

I feel fairly confident that the only reason 101 won unanimously was because of King Buxton's burnout right at the end. I feel 101 up to that point may have had a slight lead, but that was pretty much the death nail for Buxton. But seriously, what a fight. I'd argue that was the best fight where a King B incarnation and a Team 101 robot are in the arena together, and that includes their Tag Team battles. It just has so much, all with so little.

Number 15

I wonder how many kids got their favourite toy cars wrecked?

Y'know, there's a lot I like about Robot Wars' reboot, but there are still things about it I don't like. One of the biggest issues I really have is, I'm afraid to say, Jonathan Pearce's commentary. Now, it's great that they were able to get him back for such an iconic role, one he really made his own, but - and I don't know if it was because he hadn't done it for so long, the fact that the teams got more speaking roles or simply that he was getting older - he didn't really have the same feel as he used to and, frankly, was nowhere near as memorable. In that aspect, it's like how I feel James Earl Jones had the worst performance of the voice actors of The Lion King remake - great they got him back, but he just couldn't do the lines properly anymore.

And I say all this because Jonathan's lines in the classic series were absolute golden, with Series 4 having him, I believe, at his personal best. Take, for example, this little gem from the number 15 ranked heat final.

"Do not try this at home, children, with a toothpick on your brother's favourite model car! (Wait until Christmas Day and do it then)"

— A classic from good ol' JP

Commentary aside, however, Dominator 2 vs 101 had a lot to carry it. It was pretty obvious that Dominator 2 had the better weapon going in, but 101 has this ability to not care about that and keep ploughing on despite being overwhelmed and invariably it pushes its "superior" opponent right to the limit. Whether that's down to its design, how good a driver it has or some supernatural phenomenon is up for debate. It is armed with a curse, after all.

Dominator's tactics were clear - get 101 up on its wedge and hit it with the axe. 101's tactics were also clear - keep to the sides and push Dominator around. Both played to their strengths very well throughout. 101 got several good pushes, whilst Dominator landed several holes in 101's top. This isn't even covering the very back and forth pushing clashes between the two, when they were trying to push each other into, or away from, the clutches of a House Robot. Sure, it was fairly obvious Dominator 2 had the advantage overall and deserved the victory ultimately, you have to give points to 101 for not making it easy. It really fought tooth and nail there - much like its last heat final, actually.

Come to think of it, the last few entries have quite an amusing and certainly unintentional pattern. Number 17 had King Buxton defeat All Torque, but it lost Number 16 to 101, who in turn lost Number 15 to Dominator 2. It's almost a pity Dominator 2 never lost a heat, it might have been fun to see if the chain had been continued. Dominator's fights are often amongst the best in a series it's in, so...a good possibility.

Number 14

Now THAT is a snipe shot

Flipped out of the arena. Axed through the motors. Crushed to a fiery pulp. Burned alive. Wheels cut off. Torn asunder. With all the flashy ways a robot could be eliminated, why is it one of my favourite fights in Series 4 was one where one robot simply knocked the other over?

Wild Thing vs Steel Avenger basically feels like a continuation to Wild Thing's previous heat win over Cerberus the series prior, a battle I rated quite favourably as is. I'd argue it's one of Wild Thing's best fights, at least of those where it actually won. You thought Thing 2 was fast-paced and frantic in Series 3? Well, it's got more where that came from. Right from the get-go, it is all over Steel Avenger, getting continually in its face, then dodging away before Steel Avenger can even think about firing the axe. It is perhaps one of the greatest displays of domination I can think of for its time, and considering the big names Series 4 had, that is saying something. And it all goes by so quickly. Even Wild Thing's pushes are fast, seemingly not slowed a bit by trying to move Steel Avenger around. It's a very active fight and I can applaud that. And that all leads up to the knockout.

As Steel Avenger tries to get its bearings over the pit-square, Wild Thing charges in. Somehow, it manages to get underneath Steel Avenger at just the right angle and at just the right speed to coast right under it, causing Steel Avenger's right side to go up its wedge and then tip over. It's like Beast of Bodmin vs Onslaught, but even better, because it always looks to me that Steel Avenger came away from Wild Thing before it had gone all the way up the wedge and it just couldn't stop momentum from tipping itself over. It's a shame that its srimech failed to work, but still, what a knockout. And what a fitting end too...Sir Killalot had Steel Avenger in his grasp and he could have pushed it into the now open pit easy as that, but instead, he backed away and let Wild Thing finish the job. After dominating the fight the way it did, it deserved that. A great way to end what I feel is Series 4's best heat final.

But not quite Wild Thing's best heat final. We'll get to that....

Number 13

An impressive moment when you consider just how crippled Tough As Nails was

This may be a bit of a spoiler here, but you won't be seeing a very long write-up for these next two entries. I already discussed them in depth quite recently in another list and it'd be hard to do them justice again. But I will say, both of them are amazing heat finals that I'm honestly surprised didn't make the top ten.

Beyond that, it's really hard to do Tough As Nails vs Robochicken any justice just by describing it. You really need to watch it unfold to really appreciate just how great of a battle it was. A champion of a major live event in the Netherlands against Series 7's designated "lethal joke" entry had the potential of going two ways - the simple grab and pit that we got in their first fight, or what we actually saw. And what we actually saw was an extremely tense back and forth battle where Robochicken started the stronger and Tough As Nails finished the stronger. Both had their moments on top throughout...and this is especially notable given both were suffering from issues that gave them problems in that fight.

Sure, Robochicken's gas leak meant that it couldn't easily flip TAN out of the arena, but you have to remember, TAN was fighting with a broken aerial. The team had very little control over anything that was happening in that fight. I think the fact that TAN was able to come back not only strong, but to do enough to ultimately win, is a remarkable feat in and of itself.

Number 12

This was truly a battle of two halves, and I love it for that!

"Now wait a minute", I hear you cry, "Why is this fight listed above Tough as Nails vs Robochicken? You put that battle much higher in your "Best Turnabouts" list!". Yes, that is true. Both of them are very similar fights that ended up having nearly identical scores for every category. But the thing here is context. I firmly believe Tough as Nails vs Robochicken is the better comeback. I just think that Wild Thing vs Prizephita Mach 2 is the better fight.

I consider this fight to be one of the best of all of Series 5, and certainly its best heat final. The issue with most of Series 5's heat finals is that it's very clear from the off which robot is the better machine. All eleven other heat finals were rather one-sided - of those, ten of them ended up with the dominating robot winning and the remaining one was Pussycat vs Fluffy which had OTHER problems. Wild Thing and Prizephita's match not only lasted the full five minutes but also had moments where both robots were on top. It was a very fast, active fight first starting in Prizephita's favour, leading to a moment when it genuinely looked like Wild Thing had been side-stranded and was on the verge of being counted out, and then the fight landed firmly in Wild Thing's grasp. I know both robots had their issues in this series - Wild Thing's disc wasn't as effective as it should have been and Prizephita had had drive issues throughout, but these were barely a factor.

Did the judges get the decision right? Hard to say. I will argue that Wild Thing did spend a lot of the early battle trying to keep to Prizephita's sides, preventing it from using its flipper. That and the dominant surge late on could easily make a case to counter Prizephita's aggressive and hindering flips. But this is a battle for the ages and regardless of how one feels about Series 5, definitely worth a re-watch.

Besides, I'd argue this was a blessing. If Prizephita had won, then the next fight the winner would have gotten would have been nowhere NEAR as good as the amazing clash we got.

Number 11

The moment that changed everything

I'm sorry, guys. I tried, I really did. And I'm as disappointed as you are.

I've said several times before that Series 6 is my personal favourite of the original run of Robot Wars. Honestly, I'd argue I still like it slightly more than Series 10, which would be a close second. The quality of robots in that series was really good and there were some cracking fights across the entire series. For the most part, though, I feel the heat finals were maybe a little on the middling side. You had some really great ones, but then some rather dull ones in comparison. I'd hoped that at least one may have gotten into the top ten, although I suppose I shouldn't complain that Dantomkia vs Chaos 2 only just missed out. But hey, best heat final of Series 6 still has to mean something, right?

In many ways, it feels a lot like Pussycat vs Razer from Series 4 - a really frantic battle that could have been really good but ended up being cut short. We had the old veteran in Chaos 2, who still looked strong but a little more laboured than in previous series, against rookie sensation Dantomkia who had dominated its previous two battles. It looked to have been a very promising match, and it was. After a few moments of sizing each other up, Chaos 2 lands a good flip on Dantomkia, sending it skyward but it lands back on its wheels. Dantomkia then pushes Chaos 2 into an unoccupied CPZ and Chaos 2 goes for another flip...and then all the drama happens.

My issue with Pussycat vs Razer being cut short was because of Razer seemingly breaking down and then it took a while for the battle to be effectively called off. There's no breakdown here, but instead, the flip ends up flinging both robots onto their backs. And then the House Robots happen. Both Sir Killalot and Shunt charge in as the two flippers try to self-right and end up getting Chaos 2 and Dantomkia stuck against and on the wall respectively. I feel if maybe that hadn't happened, it may have pushed the fight into the top ten. But I think what really pushes it for me was the absolute shock of the final outcome.

Dantomkia was the only one of the two robots to get off the arena wall, leaving Chaos 2 very exposed. Now, we all know it could have happened, and I'm sure we were all expecting it to happen to at least one of the robots, given how they'd already done it once each that heat, but I don't think anyone thought Chaos 2, the founder and king of the OOTA, would be flipped out of the arena. And I will agree with Jim, the fact that Dantomkia took three attempts to get underneath did make it suffer. But the fact remains, it happened and we got treated to one of the most iconic moments in Robot Wars history. Only way it would have been better if it had been Firestorm instead. Dantomkia, being the newbie and all, makes for a workable second pick, though. It may have lost any impact had it been someone like Bigger Brother.

NUMBER 10

Now, if you've been following me for a while, you may know I don't really like Series 7 as much as some people on this wikia. It's a fine series, don't get me wrong, but I'll always prefer Series 6. That being said, I won't deny that Series 7 did have some really good fights and its heat finals in particular were not only amongst the best of the series, but some of the best of all time. Five of the top ten heat finals are from Series 7...you know how much that is? That's two 2.5s, you son of a Banshee! It's also half of the entire remaining roster, to show just how good said heat finals were.

I don't think this shot, even with the motion blur, does the flip any justice at all.

Now, I'm not in the camp that believes that Gravity vs Lightning would have gone differently if Lightning didn't had a flat tyre. It certainly may have put up a better fight, but given that Lightning had already shown previously that it struggled to deal with the impact of heavy flips, I feel that a fully working tyre would have simply delayed the inevitable. Especially with Gravity being on the form it had been throughout the heat. The first flip alone sent Lightning somersaulting through the air like it was virtually nothing.

For having its mobility restricted, Lightning was still able to save face. It was still able to get underneath Gravity on a few occasions, before Gravity's wedge ended up getting caught on Lightning's link cover. A tense push and shove between the two eventually ended with Gravity throwing Lightning hard enough to stun whatever control it had left, before another flip sent Lightning flying over 360 degrees in the air, in one of the most impressive flips I've seen that didn't end in an OOTA.

History is made

I think the fight would have been pretty high regardless whatever happened next, but with Lightning out of contention, I suppose Gravity needed to do something to really assert what a contender it was. So how do you sort that out? Take on the House Robots, of course! Flipping Shunt isn't really anything special until you look back and realise that Shunt almost got flipped 360 degrees himself, something not even Chaos 2 had managed. But then the real highlight. Gravity focused its attacks on Dead Metal, who by that point in time had never been flipped over. The first attempt got him on his side, but he rolled back down. Three more attempts barely did anything. But the final flip did the near unthinkable - Gravity got underneath Dead Metal just enough to get him onto his back. You have to remember at the time, Dead Metal's sheer width made him very difficult to even lift properly, let alone invert. I know he was the only House Robot to be flipped over multiple times in the reboot, both by Apollo, but that's still quite an ask all things considering. Gravity had made a statement...it wasn't just some random foreign fill-in.

NUMBER 9

I don't think I've never really talked in detail about the roboteers who competed in Robot Wars. Their fighting machines may have been the main draw, but without the people who built them and bought life to them, they'd be nothing but metal shells. It was nice to see the reboot actually tried to put some of the spotlight on the robot builders, especially in the tenth series, where we get to know them more as people. It felt like relatively few roboteers in the original series ever really got to stand out - they either had to be in a lot of fights or really do something to make them stand out. Whichever way it is, you still recognise them when they're on screen and you feel their absence when they're not. Especially when the sad news breaks.

A fair fight...

I know death is an unavoidable part of human life, but it's never an easy pill to swallow, especially if it's someone you know or have grown to respect. Even if we never knew them personally, the roboteers that competed in Robot Wars certainly fall into the latter category and, when one of them passes on, it's a sad time for the robot combat scene in general, rightfully so. It still feels like only yesterday, for example, that we learnt of the passing on Rex Garrod, one of the original big names of the UK roboteering scene and, even though he hadn't competed for many many years, we still felt like we'd lost a big part of the Robot Wars family. More than that, we lost a big part of what made Robot Wars felt like Robot Wars.

I can't say I ever knew the guy personally, but it was very easy to see the type of man he was - a supportive, sporting competitor who was less in it for the winning and more for the encouragement of future young roboteers to compete. I'm sure everyone has their own favourite memory of him, but I think that Cassius vs Loco is the perfect representation of what he really stood for. It may have been great to smash up another robot, but that wasn't Rex's plan. It never was, because that's the guy he was.

Think of all the times this has happened. You probably have one man to thank for that

Even in the fight, it was clear that Rex had no intention of going all out on a robot that had been put together by two young up-and-coming roboteers. He never actually used Cassius' weapon to flip Loco over. He knew he had the advantage in a head-on confrontation and once Loco was up on Cassius' wedge, Rex made sure to simply move forward just enough so that Loco toppled over with no way of getting back up. With phase 1 complete, Rex then moved onto phase 2 - taking on the House Robots. And why not? Loco was already beaten and taking on a beaten competitor was not what Rex was about. It's easy to see why the fight continued on from the obvious conclusion because it made for such a great spectacle, seeing Cassius romping around the arena, trying to keep the House Robots away from Loco, lifting them up and even flipping Matilda over before it was finally pitted. I may not like Series 2, but even I can really appreciate this fight for what it is. It's easily one of the best of the series and certainly its best heat final.

Attacking the House Robots became such a common end-of-battle celebration of sorts as Robot Wars went on, and it remained a spectacular sight even in the reboot. In a way, I feel we have Rex Garrod to thank for that and it's nice to see, therefore, that even though he left the show after the following series, his legacy still lived on. Cassius vs Loco is still a great fight on its own, but it takes a far greater significance now, because I feel it's the one singular Robot Wars moment we should remember him by. It's certainly the fight I do.

NUMBER 8

Whenever I go back to watching Robot Wars, I always find myself going back to the "100kg-era" first. It's not necessarily that I think they had the best fights, but I do personally feel it had the best atmosphere, and I feel that has something to do with the background music. Series 1-4 had the same theme running in the background over and over again, whilst the reboot had nothing (although to be fair, neither did the reboot of BattleBots). Series 5-7, along with both Extremes and all international versions, had a wide variety of themes playing in the background of their fights, typically five, which they alternated across each fight. I feel they often made the fights much more engaging.

At first, you can't really see where the armour is being crushed, but then you realise...it isn't. It's disappeared!

My personal favourite theme is what I call the "Scrapyard" theme. I believe it's officially called Hypno-Disc's theme, but it plays in the background of the Sao Paulo scrapyard stage of the Robot Wars games, so I call it the Scrapyard theme. It's typically used for the first fight in an episode and also fairly frequently the last. Some of my own personal favourite fights have used this backing music, including M2 vs Tiberius 3, which when you consider that the Scrapyard theme was rarely actually used in Series 7 as background fight music (it was reserved more for advert breaks), I guess it just makes that fight all the more memorable for me.

The fight of course does have other things that make it really stand out. The main one being, as I've discussed before in another list, an amazing comeback on the part of M2. Probably the favourite to win after an impressive victory over Pussycat, M2 struggled at first to get its flipper into play when Tiberius launched an attack I can only describe as "sick" - plunging its crusher into M2's polycarbonate armour so easily that Jonathan Pearce's description of it "melting away" still feels like the most appropriate description for it.

With M2 in its grasp, Tiberius spends a good chunk of the fight trying to open the pit and get M2 down. Most of the fight is the two locked together and I think it speaks volumes that the fight ended up THIS high when, for the most part, very little happened. It was clear M2 wasn't going to go down fighting and kept steering Tiberius away from the pit whenever it could. What we ended up getting was a massive tug-of-war that only ended when the two robots ended up in the CPZ. Eventually, under pressure from the House Robots, Tiberius was forced to let go...and with that, it lost the fight.

You like putting me under pressure? Lets see how YOU like it!

I've already discussed the details of this fight relatively recently, so I won't bore you too much, but the moment M2 got away it made sure not to make the same mistake again, and the moment it finally managed to flip M2 over, it made sure not to give it a chance to let it get back up again. It was clearly trying to flip Tiberius out of the arena, but when that failed, it then tried to flip it into the pit. The first flip left Tiberius on its back very close to the pit, but the second flip scored...not quite a slam dunk, but a very nice little rebound where it looked like Tiberius would just land on the edge but instead bounced backwards and down. A satisfying end to a great comeback and a great heat final. And I still say the Scrapyard theme really made it. To a degree.

NUMBER 7

Here's a question. Does anyone ever go back over a series of Robot Wars and watch just the fights of the eventual series champion? To remind yourself just how it made it the grand accolade of Robot Wars champion? You do? Great, that means you're almost as sad a person as I am! Hey, I've spent a whole year ranking 105 heat finals...I need any victory I can.

But seriously, I don't really blame you. All the cool kids do it. It's also quite a refreshing way of looking back over all these fights and see where the best moments the eventual champion had are. But think about it - how many of those have been heat finals? I've been largely critical about many a champion's heat finals...for the most part, they're not often that good, and even then, they're rarely the highlight of their heat run. There are exceptions to this rule, of course, but even then, I feel they're often overshadowed.

This would have only worked as a gif. Nothing else would have done it justice

Take, for example, Typhoon 2. It had its highs, its lows and its mega-lows in its run to the Series 7 championship, but when it did hit a high, it's still hard to pick a best moment. For me, there are three choices. Typhoon 2 vs Hammerhead 2 was a clear demonstration as to what Typhoon could do on a good day and Typhoon 2 vs X-Terminator showed it was able to deal with the true elite of the series, but then there's Typhoon 2 vs Iron Awe 2.1, a heat final nobody was expecting to the point of blatant denial when people on the forums started throwing spoilers around. Those things were inevitable back then. I still remember when I called out Apollo as Series 8 champion by complete accident.

In theory, Iron Awe had two ways it could beat Typhoon - flip it over, or use its axe to disable its spinning. I feel the team were confident that either method could work. Typhoon had other ideas. Even without any traction issues, I'm not 100% sure it would have been able to catch up with Typhoon before it had gotten up to speed and, crucially, that's when it lost the fight. Typhoon shut down Iron Awe's plans in the most brutal way possible. It didn't just rip Iron Awe apart, it didn't just tear gashes...it hit Iron Awe so hard it sent its opponent spinning. That may have been the slippery substance speaking in hindsight, but damn, it looked so impressive!

OUCH!

And even if we take the spinning out of the equation, the damage Typhoon caused was equally brutal. It caused serious damage to Iron Awe's flipper, putting the major threat out of commission very quickly. Give Iron Awe credit for keeping going as long as it did, but by the end of it, it looked like it had run into a concrete wall several times. And this is an era where robots were largely designed to stand up to spinning weapons. Typhoon did not mess around.

The fight was extremely enjoyable and certainly one of Typhoon's best of the series. However, I do feel it could have been slightly better. I feel that perhaps, if Typhoon had managed to knock Iron Awe into the pit with that one last spinning blow, it may have boosted up the fight just a little more. But then we'd miss out on Typhoon 2 destroying a cooker. Why would you deny that!? Cookers are OP.

NUMBER 6

Robot Wars has had many changes across its many series, with perhaps the biggest being format changes. I've mentioned in a past list - Top 10 Good Robots with Bad Declines - that often a change in format can make or break a robot's performance. Without spoiling the list for anyone who hasn't read the list, I cited that the most significant format change was that between Series 2 and 3, where the format went from obstacle courses and fighting, to all-out brawls. Such a matter was chosen very late into development, with the robots who competed in that series being built for obstacles and even qualifying through the use of an obstacle course. Why exactly the change on format happened, I can't say, but it's clear Robot Wars ultimately changed for the better because of it, competitive wise at least. Can you imagine Carbide trying to compete in Soccer, or Nuts doing...well, anything? Maybe it'd be good at Pinball, I dunno...

TPTB were clearly very pleased with their new battle format because, at the end of the series, they held a little competition involving it. They presented three fights and viewers had to try and guess which fight the judges thought was the Best Battle of the Series. Fittingly enough, two of the three fights were Heat Finals, and whilst I don't necessarily agree the right fight won (which I hope I can clarify later), Chaos 2 vs The Big Cheese is far from a poor choice.

I remember watching this fight for the first time, and thinking Chaos 2 had lost at this moment

To be fair, the whole heat has been declared to be the best heat overall of Series 3, no doubt helped by a set of very impressive performances from our heat finalists. Neither had had any real issue getting to this stage and, really, both could have been heat winners. But who would truly win this David vs Goliath clash? Well...that description alone should make it obvious.

But it's not that simple. Both robots had their moments on top. Big Cheese managed to start strong, lifting up Chaos 2, but it couldn't quite get it over. Then, as they met in a front-on confrontation, Chaos 2 effortlessly launched Big Cheese onto its back. I remember watching this for the first time and wondering if Big Cheese was, perhaps, too big for Chaos 2 to flip. Nope! Clearly wasn't. And just to clarify that point, it flipped it over again over the flame pit.

But then Big Cheese got in an attack and managed to overturn Chaos 2 completely, in what I feel was the only time across its whole championship run that Chaos 2 was put in legitimate danger. It was sitting upside down, and when I first saw it, I thought that was it...until Chaos 2 fired its flipper and sprung back onto its wheels. This was me-not-knowing-about-Series-2 talking here, so the srimech was virtually unknown to me, but even for someone who HAD seen Series 2, and in particular had seen how Chaos 1 lost, this was a clear case of the demons being vanquished.

This should count as a win in Big Cheese's win/loss tally, right? Right? No? Oh, OK...

And then it immediately returned favour, and Big Cheese tried to right itself. I thought for a moment it was going to...and it was kind of painful watching it get so far up but not quite far enough. It wasn't to be, and Big Cheese was set upon by the House Robots. But if they thought they were going to have a fun time trashing a beaten robot, Big Cheese had other ideas. Its complete destruction of Sgt Bash still stands to me as one of the best House Robot attacks ever. It didn't just lift Sgt Bash over, it completely gutted him. Talk about a way to go out with a bang.

Whilst I don't agree with the result, I do think Chaos 2 vs Big Cheese was still a worthy winner of the Best Battle of the Series. What surprises me, though, is that this whole Best Battle of the Series was never carried over to any future series. The closest I ever saw to a repeat of this was on the old Tectonic Robot Wars fansite, nominating Tornado vs Kater Killer vs Gemini as the best fight of Series 4. It was solid, I agree...but I wouldn't say it's the best, not by a long shot. That just feels like Gemini hyperbole.

NUMBER 5

So I've been trying to figure out if there is a connection between which heat finals are in the higher end of my countdown. Honestly, I think the only consistency is that something really good happens. Either it's really entertaining, or it has either a good comeback or a good knockout. As much as I enjoy a long battle where neither robot gives up, I think it says a lot that none of the battles in the top 10 have ended in a judges' decision. You just can't beat a good finish.

So, what makes a good knockout? There's a lot of things to take into consideration, but I often like to look into how unique and spectacular the knockout is. It may not be the most unique knockout on this list, but Magnetar vs Thor is certainly spectacular. It can only be described as Robot Wars' ultimate snipeshot.

Credit of putting up a brave effort

It was honestly no surprise that these two made it to their heat final - what for now is the last heat final ever held - but it was more a case of which robot wanted it more. Both had some serious inner demons they needed to get themselves rid of. Whilst Thor and Pulsar, Magnetar's precessor, had been grand finalists in Series 8, they'd only done so on the backs of losses that would have eliminated them were it not for a wildcard and withdrawal, respectively. For Series 9, both robots looked strong, but suffered badly from gremlins that knocked them out prematurely and poorly if I do say so myself. Both were clearly determined to get through to the Grand Final this time.

Magnetar's tactic was clear - smash Thor around the arena. Thor's tactic was also clear - tangle up Magnetar's drum and then hammer it into submission. What we got was a very tense and tight minute or so, with Thor landing a few fairly solid hammer blows, but it quickly becoming clear that not only did Magnetar have the more effective weapon, it was also resilient enough to withstand Thor's blows. It began to pressure Thor, knocking it over both by its weapon and by the floor flipper. Yet Thor refused to die. It was clearly now on the backfoot, but it kept coming back for more, trying to get any sort of advantage it could.

"It was at this moment that Jason knew...he Foxiced up."

And then came the knockout. One of the most spectacular killshots I think I've ever seen in Robot Wars. Even more so than with Magnetar's previous shot on Expulsion. In that battle, it blasted Expulsion with its drum, knocking it onto the floor flipper, which then sent it flying even further. It actually tried a similar tactic with Thor, knocking it powerfully onto the floor flipper. Before Thor could recover, the hazard activated, throwing Thor over...right on top of Magnetar's drum. Magnetar had managed to get itself in just the right place to hit Thor where it was really vulnerable and it paid off - Thor's gas supply was immediately ruptured, leaving Thor to lay on its back, chocking on its own carbon dioxide. Magnetar pulled off the ultimate snipeshot and won the battle. Its gremlins had been conquered.

...well, until the Grand Final, that is. You never truly lose them. Just ask Fluffy.

NUMBER 4

I had a hard time trying to figure out a good way to introduce this fight. I have no idea why - it's infamous for many many reasons. It's a strong finish to a dominant heat run and it features not only one of the greatest OOTA "flips" of all time but one of the best knockouts any robots has ever pulled off. It's a really, REALLY good fight...and yet I find myself not really having an interesting way to introduce it.

Well, I suppose it's my fault for wasting a good introduction on an April Fools joke.

Wait, haven't I used this picture already?

I will say this, though - Storm 2 vs Steel Avenger is the highest ranked heat final where the winner was completely dominant over its opponent. The remaining three have significant sections where the eventual loser was on top and could have won, but here, Storm 2 did not give Steel Avenger the time of day at all. And don't get me wrong, I have a strong preference for fights that are equal, but at the same time, seeing a robot really assert itself and prove its overall dominance is just so satisfying. Especially when it pays off. Storm 2's performance paid off!

The fact it starts by just scooting right underneath Steel Avenger, causing the latter to get its axe stuck in the floor, should give some indication as to how this fight will go. Whilst Steely is stricken, Storm 2 gathers it up and then SLAMS it into the arena wall, causing Steel Avenger to bounce away like it's nothing. Steel Avenger is shaken, and from then on, it feels like Storm 2 is actively playing with it...it can get under Steely with ease, but instead of another slam, each time it just pushes it lightly into a CPZ, or aside. It's clearly deliberate. Having a push on Refbot is also quite funny.

Even in slow motion, it's so elegant...

And then, after a while, Storm 2 decides it's had enough and decides to go full throttle. It scoops up Steel Avenger and drives it from one end of the arena to the other, eventually slamming it into the bottom right corner. The impact is so great that Steel Avenger just flies straight upwards and goes OVER the arena wall and out! Now, anyone reading this, please, be honest...did ANYONE see this coming?. Storm 2 just threw a robot out of the arena in a way no other robot has achieved in Robot Wars - brute strength.

Craig Charles really did put it best - "Who needs a flipper when you've got a robot like that!?"

NUMBER 3

Going into this, I should really be writing the top three all at once. I don't think anyone would really want to wait for me to write down the number one entry when it's blatantly obvious which one it is, after all...but I know for a fact I just won't be able to do that. Know, however, that the top three were all very, very close, and on another day, I'm sure they could be completely interchangable. I say this because I know that the fight I've got at number three is extremely popular with members of the wiki, and I can't blame them.

Tsunami used flamethrower. It's super effective!

In fact, I agree wholeheartedly that X-Terminator vs Tsunami is a really great fight. Not only is it the best heat final of Series 7, I think it's one of the best overall fights of that series...heck, probably even one of the best of all time. Even the fact that I'd heard rumours that X-Terminator had made it to the grand final, and thus knowing it would win, didn't stop this fight from being really good. For starters, it's a battle between what were clearly the strongest two robots in their heat - their absolute romp together in their first battle proved this and nothing was going to top them. This is Chaos 2 vs Big Cheese all over again. Two great robots, but one has to go prematurely.

And for the longest moment, it looked like it would have been X-Terminator.

"Fatal mistake" indeed...

Almost straight away, Tsunami was able to flip X-Terminator clean onto its back and exploit what is now a serious design flaw. Before, X-Terminator could self-right from just about any angle. Now, it can only right itself from its side - get flipped onto its back, and all it could do was skitter around. That is until it hit the arena wall and came to a stop. Now, if the fight ended there, it would have been much further down the list for being rather anticlimactic. But Tsunami had successfully thrown all three of its previous opponents out of the arena. It wasn't going to turn down the chance to throw a fourth out. The first flip missed, however, and knocked X-Terminator onto its side, but so close to the wall that its side spikes just stranded it up against the wall again. Then Tsunami came in for another flip, one to get X-Terminator out of the arena, an outcome that would have gotten it lower on the countdown, but probably not by much, as it would have been a dominant victory.

But it missed. X-Terminator bounced off the wall and landed back on its wheels.

That's how it's done

As they say, the rest is history. Tsunami clearly began to panic, because they quickly retreated to the far end of the arena, but just couldn't get into a position to get under X-Terminator again. Either that or X-Terminator was just not willing to give it the time of day. I'm not sure, but from then on, X-Terminator kept on top of Tsunami, coming onto it with blow after blow. The team knew what would happen if they let Tsunami get a chance again...they weren't going to let that happen. And so by the time the action got back to the arena wall again, poor Tsunami had been left as a broken, smoking mess.

But still X-Terminator came in for more attacks. Maybe it was to drive home just how big of a mistake Tsunami had made. X-Terminator knew Tsunami had lost the fight, that it was no longer mobile, and knew NOW was the time to get it out of the arena. And, while it took a few tries, it managed to land a blow in just the right place to knock Tsunami out in a crumpled heap. The perfect (and most satisfying, in X-Terminator's case) way to end a great heat final.

Still feel bad for Tsunami, though. It really could have won a good deal of other heats. In a sense, its own overconfidence defeated it, rather than X-Terminator. I still stand by that claim.

NUMBER 2

Over my years of watching Robot Wars, it feels like the fights get the best response are if what happens is something that literally nobody sees coming. It's nowhere near limited to Robot Wars, of course - other shows like BattleBots and King of Bots are like this too. Moments such as RotatoR completely shutting down Tombstone in the former or Yesaji manhandling Two BBQ in the latter were pretty much all the talk of the forums after the episode had aired. It's also exactly for this reason why Bigger Brother vs Hypno-Disc is often cited as one of the best fights Robot Wars has ever had - nobody expected what happened and it was a remarkable comeback. Some would even say the best comeback Robot Wars ever had.

You may remember I disagreed with that latter statement. I still do.

For a moment, it looked like the reigning champion was going out!

I don't really want to repeat myself too much from the Greatest Turnabouts list I made a while back, so if you want to know why I think Panic Attack vs X-Terminator is as good a comeback as it is, I suggest you go view that list. It's at least part of the reason why I think this is such a great heat final, and certainly worthy of being Series 3's best. The other reason is that I think nobody would have seen any point of the battle coming, no matter which way you look at it.

Think about it for a moment. These two are, again, the best two robots in the heat by a country mile. However, X-Terminator is a rookie. Panic Attack, meanwhile, is the defending champion. Looking at that by context alone, this should be an absolute no-brainer for Panic Attack. I can tell you right now, this fight would be nowhere near this high if it were a "no-brainer".

Suddenly, the tables begin to turn...

Because, right off the bat, it's clear that X-Terminator has the advantage. It's faster for one thing, and appears to have the far more effective weapon. It spends a good chunk of the fight all over Panic Attack, getting around its sides continuously, axing it over and over again. Furthermore, it continually gets Panic Attack into the arena wall, several times. For about an entire minute of fight-time...and I wouldn't be surprised if it was more in the uncut version...X-Terminator is clearly on top. No one would have seen this coming, surely.

Likewise, who would have really seen Panic Attack pulling off the comeback it did? Its only chance is to flip X-Terminator over, but it has a srimech, and without the pit Panic Attack is lacking its otherwise main victory tactic. But in what seems like a desperate move, it charges at X-Terminator head-on, forcing it to retreat into the arena wall. Now, we don't see X-Terminator's gas canister rupture until a post-fight replay and, in a way, I think that helps the fight. As far as we know, X-Terminator is still a dangerous threat.

Yeah, really, I do believe this should have won the Best Battle award

But once the canister does break, Panic Attack does not let up, because it knows it needs to finish the fight now. It gets underneath X-Terminator and finally completes the flip. X-Terminator rolls over the first time, but Panic Attack keeps up the pressure and overturns it again. I wonder if Kim Davies hadn't noticed X-Terminator's canister was broken, because I noticed he kept ramming Panic Attack into X-Terminator as the latter was inverted, as if trying to prevent it from self-righting, because he was expecting it to. He only really sat back once Shunt cut X-Terminator's drive chain off, because at that point, he'd won.

It's a battle of two halves, to be sure. Nobody could have predicted that X-Terminator would have dominated the fight the way it did. I'm pretty sure nobody could have predicted that Panic Attack would have been able to turn the fight around the way it did either. But it really does show, it's not how you start a battle, it's how you finish it. In fact, I like to think X-Terminator remembered this little philosophy for later. Isn't their fight against Tsunami basically this, but with the roles reversed?

NUMBER 1

Right at the beginning of this list, I stated that I'd be happy as long as the best two robots in a given heat were in the heat final. I stand by that claim - the top three heat finals both had the best robots in their respective heat by a long shot (one exception maybe notwithstanding). There's something else that all three have in common too, and I think it's at least part of the reason why it was so difficult for me to separate them on points. What they all have in common is that the winner of the fight was not, initially, on top. Tsunami nearly had X-Terminator out of the arena in their fight, whilst the latter was all over Panic Attack a few years prior.

The same holds true here. We have a fight where one robot is largely all over the other and, at one point, nearly has it beaten. Then, out of nowhere, something happens and the struggling robot comes out of nowhere to secure a victory. The main difference for me...well, there's two. The first is something I feel the reboot did really well, especially in Series 10 - the narrative. What we have here is a heat final between two robots who both really want a heat victory. Yes, I say both...it's not as one-sided as you might think.

Dead Metal tries to obscure who these robots are, but fails miserably

On the one hand, you have Apollo. As of the reboot, it is one of the best robots around right now. Its "launcher" weapon carried it all the way to the grand final of Series 8, the first Robot Wars in years, and it was able to take home the title by being one of the very few robots to ever defeat Carbide. But come Series 9, it falls in the heat final, to the very robot it defeated to take the title last season no less. In that moment, it became the first and ultimately only defending champion to fail to win its heat the following season. The team surely want to win this heat, to prove their championship was not a fluke.

On the other hand, you have Behemoth. This is a robot that has been competing ever since Series 2 of the original series, almost 20 years prior. No single robot has been competing for this long. In its debut, it won its heat and made it through to the top eight. Ever since then, it has improved vastly, becoming a stronger, faster and better robot. But in doing so, it has been hit with problem after problem, loss after loss, disappointment after disappointment. Seven heats, seven early exits and not helped by the media over their last exit that made me legit worry that Behemoth would never be able to return to Robot Wars ever again.

So, you see, both robots really need this. For Apollo, it's to prove that its success in Series 8 was no fluke. For Behemoth, it's to bury the demons once and for all. That alone makes for a great premise.

This was legit how I was expecting the fight to go. And end - with Behemoth being a little to the left

The fight begins and the two robots advance. But straight away, Behemoth panics. It fires the scoop much too early and allows Apollo to throw it into Sir Killalot's CPZ. Behemoth really struggled to get away at first, but once it did, Apollo was able to catch up to it again and throw it towards the arena spikes. Already, we can see that Apollo is on top. This doesn't surprise me. I went into the heat expecting that these two would be the heat finalists, sure, but I also fully expected Apollo to win. I'd seen a video of the two fighting at a live event, and Apollo won easily.

Then after a small period of bumping, Behemoth suddenly fights back. It manages to get a flip on Apollo, bundling it across the arena, activating the pit and getting both machines trapped in Dead Metal's CPZ. Dead Metal goes to attack Behemoth and, during the distraction aided by the fact that both teams are unable to see their robots, Apollo rights itself. Behemoth manages to escape, only to reverse straight onto Apollo's flipper. Apollo flips Behemoth high into the air in an attack that would have easily gotten it out of the arena had it been just a few feet to the left - something Jonathan Pearce even calls out at one point.

Behemoth is forced to retreat again. It soon manages to get underneath Apollo and flip it again, but Apollo manages to self-right, wedge underneath Behemoth once more and push it into Dead Metal's CPZ again. As the House Robot starts playing with his new toy, Apollo slips around the back of Behemoth to try and flip it again. But Behemoth then turns, meeting Apollo head-on and, in the battle of ground clearance, Behemoth wins.

What follows in the next few seconds, for me, completely makes the fight. It is one of the best knockouts of all time, as far as I'm concerned.

I have one request...can we get this as a gif?

With Apollo on its scoop, Behemoth surges forward. Apollo does manage to reverse off Behemoth's scoop, but with Behemoth advancing, it tries to turn away. But in that moment, it manages to clip Behemoth's scoop at just the wrong angle, knocking it up. Behemoth fires the scoop, lifting Apollo's wheels off the ground. It's not enough to flip Apollo over, but the Series 8 champion, through sheer momentum, keeps going. By the time its wheels are back on the ground, it's too close to the pit, and gravity drags it down sideways into the hole.

I said earlier that a great narrative was one of the reasons that really helps this fight be as enjoyable as it was. Two robots who both wanted this win and they put up a great fight. But there is a second reason - Behemoth vs Apollo is one of the few fights of any robot combat show to legit shock me. I still recall first seeing it, the moment Apollo fell in the pit, literally jumping off my sofa, too shocked to even move. I'd always hoped Behemoth would win another heat, but I never thought it would actually happen, and I NEVER thought it'd be against Apollo of all machines. The delight of Team Make Robotics says it all.

I think it's testament to how good how good Series 10 was overall, because every heat afterwards had at least one really good fight - Heat 2 had every fight that wasn't the heat final, Heats 3 and 5 had their own heat finals, Heat 4 had Androne vs Tauron and the Grand Final was spectacular from start to finish. I wondered if maybe there was a little bias in regards to the fact that it was the freshest series on my mind, but even after going back over all ten series and watching 105 heat finals, going through the good and the bad, noting every single little thing I could, I really can't fault it - it really is as good as I thought, even years later.

Behemoth's win over Apollo isn't just the best heat final of Series 10. It isn't even just the best heat final of Robot Wars's short-lived reboot. It is the best heat final Robot Wars has ever had.

And it couldn't have happened to a more deserving team.

NEXT TIME

One hundred robots, over ten commentators...and one guy whose thoughts mean absolutely nothing, but he likes ranting so what the heck? It's The Top 100 Iconic Bots - Crash's Analysis