European Championships (PRE-BBC2 (if we're lucky

Welcome to the show with the best Robots from Europe, fighting to be the best of the best of Europe! :proud:
When you read that the current UK champions, Tornado, and the reigning world Champions, Razer, are both in the same line up, you know fireworks are expected....not literally, thatd be hideous...but you know what I mean....:wink:

Ok, the format for this championship is just the same as series 5, so Just a lot of 1VS1 battles basically...not too complicated! :)

Razer VS Pulveriser
Razer, the Reigning world champions, and Pulveriser, who were the Dutch champions, and are a two wheeled robot with a vertical disc in the centre (think a slightly wider but shorter stinger with a spinning disc in the middle where Stinger has its thumper)
Also for this battle, Pulverisers driver has decided to dress up as Elvis Presley....lucky charm perhaps? Well...its best not to dwell on such things is it? :proud:
As soon as the battle began, Razer drove into a clinical grab on Pulveriser, sinking its claw from the rear of the bot to just behind where the vertical disc protrudes. With this hold they were able to ease them towards a CPZ, with Growler waiting to also add his jaws to this crush-a-thon! Eventually, Pulveriser managed to break free, and wandered off around the arena, only to encounter Razer again (funny how that happens) who decided to crush near its wheel this time. Notable however, Razers crusher could not damage the shell of Pulveriser, just clamp...some strong armour on the Dutch Champion.
Eventually, Pulveriser was free again, and decided to wander off again, until it found the pit.....all on its own!! Uh-huh....OHHHHHH, Elvis the roboteer mustve yelled, was it deliberate or intentional? We never found out!

Zeus VS Black Hole
This time we have Zeus, Italian robot, white and cube-ish, with powerful looking flipping forklift on the front, and Black Hole, German Champion, small, compact robot with a wedge...however the wedge appears to be the rear of the robot, as on the front of the robot were twin spinning blades that spin vertically.
Upon activate the two robots charged at each other, and immediatly Black Hole ripped off the flipping forklift of Zeus, also flipping it over. With only half its weapon left, Zeus couldnt self right, so the rest of this battle consisted of BH smashing Zeus with its twin discs, flipping it over, flipping it back, flipping it over again...you get the picture!
Every time it did so however, it create damage, so by the end of the battle we had a very crumpled and buckled Italian robot sitting at the bottom of the pit, and a very good looking German robot that could prove a dark horse for this championship.

Phillipa 2 VS Rawbot
Rawbot is a black, low flat square robot that is basically a rambot, no outward weapons of any kind.
Phillipa 2 is the same shape as many people will remember it from the last world Championships, only this time it has developed a crushing beak on the rear of the robot, while the flipper is still present on the front.
Activate was called, and the two robots smashed into each other, although neither seemed affected by the impact. Flipper fired its flipper, lifting the rear of Rawbot into the air, but again, the affect of this was minimal...
A lot of push a shoving later, Rawbot pressed the pit release button, yet this allowed P2 to get into position to give it a shove towards doom. It looked just like Rawbot would fall down, yet at the last possible moment Phillpa fired its flipper, inexplicably saving its opponent from falling down!
No matter, said the belgian champions, they just changed tatics, used their crusher to grab Rawbot by its wheel, then simply maneuvered Rawbot into the pit....great work.

ff6000>Tornado VS ????
Err....this is where the tracking of my tape goes haywire....I cant see a damn thing...the only thing I can see it a lot of shoving going on all around the arena, and the only reason I know it is Tornado is they turn up in the next round. Apologies to the other robot, Im sure I could enjoy you If I could see you! :sad:
(I guess it wasnt a good idea trying to cram Series 6 and Extreme 2 on to the same tape Long Play was it? :sad: )

ff6000>Phillipa 2 VS Black Hole
Interesing battle in prospect this, on the one hand, Black Hole had been all power and show in its first round battle, whereas Phillipa had been all control.
Phillipa had also delivered shocks in its past, most notably flipping the quite good looking Panzer in its melee in the Second World Championships. The question being, could it avoid the powerful weapon of Black Hole?
At first, it couldnt. BH was bringing its weapon to bear on Phillipas armour and was causing damage. Then it made ONE critical mistake. It decided to attack P2s flipper end, probably trying to rip it off. However, P2 took this oppertunity to flip the invertable robot on to its back. No problem I thought, its invertable, and the weapon shouldt be affected.
However, there was no invert button for Black Holes twin spinning discs, so now it was upside down, the continued spinning the same direction the had before....however, that direction was now downwards. Since the blades on the discs were angled upwards, this meant it couldnt do as nearly as much damage to P2 as it did before.
P2 also sensed that the battle had turned its way, so went for the pit release...meanwhile BH still kept to its task, trying to attack P2 with its discs as best it could. But almost unseen P2 was edging it towards the pit, and it went in!! What an upset for the machine that had looked so powerful in round 1!

000000>Razer VS Tornado
Ehhhh......tricky...
Obviously, this was big news on the RW forum at the time, and this being now, 6 months or more after the event, I know everything about the battle, everything that each respective team member posted about how they viewed it.
But at the time, I was a bit annoyed to see them facing another so soon. I like both robots you see (is that a crime???), and either way I was going to lose one of them. All the name calling and accusations after the series 6 final served to annoy me since I was in both camps, if that was possible....so either party insulting the other meant I was insulted....be it as a Tornado fan or a Razer Fan....so youll forgive me if another Razer VS Tornado battle didnt excite me!
Still, to the battle in hand, Tornado didnt have its frame on, and Razer won.
Wait, no, that would be too simple wouldnt it.
Tornado DID have its Anti-Razer-Anti-crusher-Anti-pit frame on, yet this Time Razer had come up with a modification to anticipate Tornados Razer Anticpating modification. (complicated isnt it? :proud: )
Basically, Razer had the same Idea of a spike from the claw to allow them to lift Tornados frame, only this time it was much bigger.
Activate was called, and both robots went on the attack. This time Razer decided to use its claw from the start, and immediatly lifted Tornado by its struts. After a brief moment when it looked like they were going to try and get Tornado OOTA, they began edging Tornado towards the pit...in a slow, smoking, process...
Now, I was worried at this point, since it seemed that Razer had gone a long long time without letting Tornado go, as it says in the rules.....though at the time I didnt know if this was true, or that Razer had let go and re-clamped again and it was edited out since it wasnt exciting enough. So Razer was trying to angle Tornado the right way so it fitted into the pit. Cease was called at this point....but was this the end of it??
NO!!!!
Despite Razer holding Tornado for more than the allowed time (it turned out that Razers motors had blown, it was immobile, and only hung on to Tornado to prevent it from smashing it up, A-la Pussycat), The judges gave it to Razer.
Wow....ok, contraversial, but when have the judges been scared of controversy, or indeed of making the wrong decision?
At least that was the end of it....wasnt it???
NOOOOO!!!!!
An interview was arranged with the Razer team (minus Ian Lewis) Where they announced that there were handing their place in the final over to Tornado...the first time that had happened since Series 3.
What controversy....perhaps this time Im grateful this may not be seen by the masses...I cant be doing with wading through all the moaning kids and gloating children (depending which side they are on) once again!

Euro Championship Final:ff6000>Tornado VS Phillipa 2}
Huh?? Phillipa 2...how long ago did its battles seem? :proud:
There was still a title on the line here, and bot robots wanted it.
Tornado (with its spinning disc on this time) dominated Phillipa 2 in a way that Black Hole tried to, pushing it all over the place and causing damage with its spinning disc (indeed, ripping a whole side panel off P2 at one point!)
Tornado proved once again that they will always win on control in a judges decision, by not letting their opponent into the fights.
But then again, with the pit in the arena, they rarely need Judges Decisions, since one shove later, the Belgian champs were down the pit, and the U.K. Champs became also the European Champions! :)

Another action packed show, it seems an injustice if this stays on the cutting room floor for all eternity, but could we do without dragging up all those old wounds?
Something to think about I guess....still, another great show, and it must have been broadcast somewhere around Europe surely?
I hope they enjoyed it as much as I did! :)

ff6000>Hmmmmmmmmmm

Pulverizer has an armour made of Hardox, wich Razer couldnt penetrate. But Razer did manage to bend a part of the frame inside the robot when it gripped around the armour. as a result of that pulverizer lost most control over its drive.

Ok, so not wandering of its own volition then...and not a deliberate self pitting! :)

Nice to clear that one up...I did wonder at the time! :wink:

ff6000>Hmmmmmmmmmmmm

The Belgian Philliper is still around,but very inactive. Unfortunatly the builder Filip Poppe doesnt have much time left between his dayjob -some job in the port of Zeebrugge and his homebusines -renting,leasing selling mopeds and motorbikes.
Other unfortunate thing, he doesnt use internet.

And Yes, it was broadcasted on the German RTL2 channel, another TV compagny that bought the Mentorn Robot wars show-in National format.

The robot that was fighting Tornado was Snake Bite from Switzerland, a wedge shaped robot with a crushing claw & it had holes in its armour making it look almost like a wedge of Swiss cheese. It was no match for Tornado but it took a bashing from Psychos hammer

i have when firestrom flipped physcho on tape and it looks like this was shown on uk hoizern. hmmm anyone seen it on there?

UK Horizons no longer exists. They axed it in favour for UK TV Documentaries

your right but they did show that epsidoe :P

Does anyone have this episode on video?