Well this was an entertaining heat. The battles seemed on this occasion to be well contested and thought by machines of equal calibre, which made for plenty of good fights. Heres my view of the action:

Melee 1

Well it certainly got off to an entertaining start, with Bulldog nearly tossing Infernal Contraption OOTA...twice!
Mantis then showed its stuff and picked up Jabber, who we never really saw a lot of, in fact it only appeared again when it was flipped by bulldog. The Infernal Contraption also seemed to fade into insignificance late on, but Bulldog stayed active thorughout, and mantis looked very impressive. About that controversy though...I thought it was really exaggerated to make good TV. Bulldog had explained what happened and it was very obvious once explained. I wouldnt have forgiven the judges if the decision had gone the other way.

Melee 2

A great bout. Very fast and competative. Well done Hard. T-wrecks looked like a good idea, but the spikes seemed to get bent very easily. Velocirippa was very fast, and Kat 3 looked solid as always.

Middleweights

The final already? Anyway...yawn.

Second Round 1

Oh dear i had high hopes for this fight... two well built, evenly matched machines, but it was not to be. An obviously disgruntled Bulldog only had to attack an already dead Hard to prove itself the winner. Too short for me.

Second Round 2

This was a good fight, it was very even. I thought that the late lift from Mantis might have swung it the other way...but never mind. A bulldog/kat rematch seemed to be on the cards.

Final

The battle of the show. Very competative and hugely entertaining. 5 flips against 2 good hits...i agree with the judges.

The oncoming semi finals

So..Bulldog finally makes it there. Has a good chance Id say. Solid and well built.. and now 8 out of 11 in the smeis are flippers, and the two others encoporate lifting aspects into their designs. The flippers ae really dominating this year, and Id say a flipper will lift the title.