USA's Eagle Prime taking on Japan's Kuratas was meant to be the robot fight of the century — a Mayweather-Pacquaio but for hulking MegaBots.

Instead it ended up being a brutal beatdown … the lamest and most disappointing brutal beatdown you could imagine.

This fight has been years in the making, with US-based firm MegaBots and Japan's Suidobashi Heavy Industries talking smack at each other about the fiery destruction their respective machines would reap.

Eagle Prime looked like a menacing metal titan from the future, but it turned out to be about as destructive as a hair straightener. ( Reuters )

Nerds worldwide couldn't wait to witness Japanese tech genius take on raw American power, with each metal titan piloted by a brave human.

And for a generation that grew up watching epic Mecha Anime battles between big, weaponised robots, this was fantasy becoming reality.

But when the fight finally happened, it was about as exciting as that time your hair dryer made your hair straightener blow a fuse because you had both switched on at the same time.

The robots looked the part. Shiny, massive and weighing about 6 tonnes, they appeared capable of some pretty serious destruction, with their claws and battering rams and chainsaws.

Once they started ponderously advancing on each other with the finesse and menace of a couple of decommissioned garbage trucks, the spell was immediately broken.

The MegaBots battle looked nothing like this. ( Supplied: Gundam )

For the record, Eagle Prime won. It won by slowly clanging into Kuratas so that they both got stuck, then applying its giant, surprisingly ineffective chainsaw repeatedly until bits flaked off Kuratas' arm, and somebody (a robot ref, a cyborg conciliator, an android arbiter?) decided to end the pain and declare the contest over.

Throughout the bout, the commentators shouted and even got up out of their chairs and ran around, and somebody set off small explosions on the set to add to the illusion that something interesting was happening.

In the end, though, it was clear that we are still at least 200 years away from technology catching up with cartoons when it comes to robot battles.

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