Ever since each series of Robot Wars aired, there have been plenty of scenarios where if one small thing had changed, the entire series is affected as a result. These are a clever little thing to think about, and we've even run tournaments on this wiki where we run the rest of the series if each of the heat winners had lost their Heat Final.

However, in all the years of these hypotheses, there's something which I recently thought about, which has been totally missed. I think the logic in coming up with timeline changes usually defaulted to a Heat Final going differently, or more directly, "how do I cause the champion to lose early". When thinking along those lines, a curious little case like this gets ignored, as it doesn't involve the champion's route and it doesn't focus on a heat finalist. Nevertheless, Series 7 almost had a heat winner that absolutely nobody could have possibly anticipated, and today I want to explore that possibility.

Now I know this will probably seem like a joke at first, as I have a bit of an infamous history with this machine - many, many people think I overrate this robot, and to be honest I agree with you. Nevertheless, I think this robot absolutely had its Series 7 heat win in the bag if fate was just a little kinder to it... or perhaps it would be more accurate to call it fate being more cruel to the eventual heat winner.

Click expand to see which robot was a coin-flip away from a place in the semi-finals of Series 7...

...it's Infernal Contraption.

Now before you all leave, hear me out, this isn't as ridiculous as it sounds. I find it just as bizarre as you do, but genuinely Infernal Contraption was a hair away from a free heat victory in Series 7. To explain, let's first touch upon one of the quietest controversies in Robot Wars history.

In Heat K of Series 7, Infernal Contraption fought the twelfth seed Bulldog Breed, alongside the qualifying Mantis and the losing Jabber. In reality, Infernal Contraption was tossed around the arena by Bulldog Breed and was fortunate to remain within the arena, and ultimately failed to assert itself much. We DO know that Infernal Contraption twisted Bulldog Breed's chassis quite badly throughout the battle, but that was less of an aggressive attack, and more just the nature of Infernal Contraption landing on the robot that was actually causing the damage. It still made the decision close enough, and the Infernal Contraption team supposedly thought they'd done enough to qualify outright. I can't agree with that, but Infernal Contraption almost got a big break in a different manner.

Towards the end of the melee, Bulldog Breed spilled out a heap of netting, which trailed across the arena and posed a serious threat to spinners, as an entanglement device. It's especially notable, then, that both of the spinners in this fight lost, while the two robots without spinners went on to win. I don't believe any of the spinners actually became entangled, but they certainly had to avoid the illegal device which would be outlawed until Series 10. Heck, even IN Series 10, actual netting was still banned, with only chains and wires being encouraged. Do I think Tony Somerfield was intentional in trying to entangle spinners in this fight, or was he completely genuine in testifying that he just wanted to protect his expensive pneumatic rams?

I think we can all agree it's the latter. I've never seen anyone doubt Tony Somerfield's testimony that he was just trying to protect his pneumatics, and I wait to see the day where someone actually accuses Bulldog Breed of an intentional rule-break. That's why this isn't really regarded as a big Robot Wars controversy - it didn't really upset anyone. Well, maybe it upset the Infernal Contraption team, but... at least they have this blog now! Bulldog Breed's team were scolded by Derek Foxwell for bending the rules, and were given a yellow card, putting their progression in the heat on a knife's edge. Any more raised eyebrows, and Bulldog Breed were going to be disqualified, but fortunately for them, they got through and fought the rest of their campaign with no controversy involved.

Still though, while I agree that disqualifying Bulldog Breed for its use of an entanglement device would have been excessively harsh, it wouldn't have been the first time Robot Wars behaved this way. Pussycat WAS disqualified in Series 3 for using an illegal type of circular blade, and other controversial cases such as the losses given to The Morgue and Suicidal Tendencies in Series 4 happened purely to follow the rules as strictly as possible, no matter how harsh it seemed. While doing my completely genuine live reaction to Heat K with Nick and Cam-Cam, we realised just how much the show was building up to a disqualification for Bulldog Breed, to the point where the U-turn of it suddenly being allowed to compete in the second round felt completely unexpected. There is absolutely a worldline where Bulldog Breed WAS disqualified for its use of the protective mesh, and by default, Infernal Contraption advances.

The drum spinner collects its second ever victory, and its next opponent is the Belgian flipper of Hard. Under normal circumstances, I of course wouldn't be inclined to give this to Infernal Contraption, as the strong armour and good control of Hard would probably give it the edge in the matchup. However, watching Hard's real second-round battle against Bulldog Breed, I see no choice but to give Infernal Contraption a second consecutive win. I've watched the dismal battle that was Bulldog Breed vs Hard plenty of times, and in no way can I attribute Hard's breakdown to Bulldog Breed. It happened before even the first flip Bulldog Breed unleashed, Hard pushed its opponent back slightly and then died of its own accord. This scenario is taking place at the exact same round, same location, same time of day, same food in the Belgian team's stomachs, same everything as the real encounter - the only difference is that the twelfth seed has been replaced by Infernal Con-bloody-traption. Therefore, Hard absolutely must break down under similar circumstances here. Ironically, we now get a much better fight - still a bad one - but contact with Infernal Contraption's drum might have disguised the cause of death on Hard's autopsy report as a spinner kill instead of a fluke breakdown, and we don't have to watch those miserable failed OotA's anymore. Infernal Contraption advances to the Heat Final...!

If any robot other than Bulldog Breed could win this heat, I would say it should ideally be Mantis, yet that already suffered a surprise loss of its own to Kat 3, which is unavoidable unless the second round draws suddenly changed to reflect Bulldog Breed's absence. This means that we have the startling Heat Final of Infernal Contraption vs Kat 3 to close out Heat K. A spinner against an axe in a Series 7 Heat Final? That's already extremely different to how Series 7 actually panned out, with a flipper or lifter in every Heat Final! We have a battle on our hands here, and this is the first part of the blog to actually feature a battle with no clear winner, and I have to back my gut feeling. If you're of the opinion that Kat 3 wins this battle, then no worries, we'll follow that timeline too. Still though, I think Infernal Contraption has this Heat Final sown up.

I think its Series 7 All-Stars encounter with Pussycat is key in deciding this prediction. The battle with Pussycat saw Kat 3 fight an extremely slippery robot armed with a fairly delicate vertical spinner, and the spinner in question landed hardly any attacks on Kat 3 in the entire five-minutes. Even despite this, the minor scrape damage Pussycat caused was still enough to award the victory to the robotic bar of soap, as Kat 3 landed even less attacks, it simply couldn't land hits on such an awkward target. Infernal Contraption is in no way a better machine than Pussycat, that's not what I'm saying, but you must admit that Pussycat's second win over Kat 3 was one of its poorest. Pussycat's driving was inaccurate and lacked purpose, its damage output was very low, but this was still enough to beat Kat 3. When Kat 3 is faced with Infernal Contraption, I basically see the same fight happening, with Infernal Contraption narrowly clutching the decision on points. Sadly that also means that our new Heat Final is one of the new worst fights in Series 7... but Infernal Contraption has amazingly won an entire heat and reached the series semi-finals of the Seventh Wars!

Before we get to its next match, let me ask - is this actually a good thing? Many people have criticised Series 7 for featuring too many flippers, especially within the semi-final stages, and this directly addresses the issue by replacing one of the tamer flippers in the Top 16 with a spinning weapon. It's too bad that the spinner filling its boots is Infernal Contraption, but statistically, we now have a drum spinner in the semis! This also gives us another unseeded heat win, and certainly an unexpected one, but at the same time, it's not like Bulldog Breed had ever won a heat either. We have to substitute at least two fights from outside of the heats as a direct result of this line-up change, and unfortunately those missing fights were rather good, with Bulldog Breed's fights against Tough as Nails and X-Terminator both being regarded highly. Can Infernal Contraption fill those boots? Erm.

OK... Infernal Contraption faces Tough as Nails. What even is this fight?? Tough as Nails will struggle to get a proper grip on the all-tyres machine that is Infernal Contraption, but also the drum spinner will cause no damage to the HARDOX pincers. This fight will be nowhere near as good as Bulldog Breed vs Tough as Nails, but realistically we get to see Tough as Nails advance to the Top 8 like many expected it to do, and in my opinion, thoroughly deserved to do. There, Tough as Nails faces X-Terminator, and I'll leave that timeline to your imaginations. If indeed Kat 3 did clutch out a win against Infernal Contraption then I expect it to put up a much better fight against Tough as Nails, albeit still a loss.

So there we have it. Infernal Contraption hilariously wins a heat in the Seventh Wars for a ninth place finish, and a seeding in Series 8 2004 if ever it happened. Do you agree that Bulldog Breed's disqualification would set up this dark timeline, and would you trade Bulldog Breed's position in the competition to let it happen? I'd be weirdly tempted to take that risk. Let me know in the comments section!