Animal Fight Club

Apex Predators and their Robot Wars Counterparts

Which animals would win in a fight is something I think about a lot. I think about which animals would win a fight more than I think about the Roman Empire, which is also a lot. Obviously, orcas are the undisputed apex predator on the planet but these theoretical battles will be taking place on land or at least in an arena where the surface area is at least 75% land, like a zoo enclosure maybe. In light of this, Orcas don’t quite make the top ten, but equally, it’s pointless compiling a list that is exclusively aquatic creatures because of orca supremacy, and I don’t really know anything about birds so they have been excluded.

1. Hippo
Nothing is fucking with a hippo. Absolutely nothing, they’re so hard they live alongside crocodiles and sometimes start a raucous with them just as something to do. Habitually ill-tempered and aggressive, a hippo in its athletic prime will gladly fight and probably murder any other species it decides it wants to on land or not land (water).

Aside from aggression and being built like an industrial fridge, hippos can outrun humans on land and are very agile in water. They also have huge powerful jaws capable of inflicting lethal injuries. The combination of all these attributes places the humble hippo atop this list; they have the size and endurance to withstand attacks from the other contenders, as well as the ability to maim all adversaries, usually other hippos. Plus if everything else fails they could just sit on and squash almost anything.

Robot Wars Counterpart: Matilda

2. Tiger
Unlike lions, tigers actually do live in the jungle. Tigers are typically a bit smaller than lions but possess more powerful muscles and use their strength and agility to take down prey. This gives them an edge in a one-on-one battle as lions tend to hunt in packs and can be murked by a pack of hyenas if they’re caught slipping. A tiger would never be this daft.

Tigers are pretty fearless and have been known to eat humans when they get old and can no longer hunt quicker prey, but sometimes they kill humans out of spite; as a Russian poacher called Vladimir Markov found out when he shot a tiger and stole part of its skull whilst on an expedition in 1997. This sent the tiger wild, in fact, he was livid. Over a day, the tiger traveled miles to find Markov's cabin and systematically destroyed anything that had the poacher’s scent on it. When Markov returned the tiger was there waiting and quickly removed Vladimir’s head from the rest of his body, which is completely understandable.

Robot Wars Counterpart: Razor

3. Lion
Lions are clearly a big threat to anything. Maybe not as scary as a tiger, but I think they could handle a bear. At the top end of elite animal fighting it really does come down to the smallest of margins, and I judge that the endurance of a lion places them just above a bear in a scrap. Bears tend to fuck about a bit as well, whilst a lion’s first goal is primarily to kill whatever it is fighting usually aiming to bite the neck, whilst a bear will just start haphazardly ripping away at the flesh of its adversaries.

Like all other elite fighting animals, the lion is agile and powerful though its their tendency to fight in groups that limit their effectiveness in a one-on-one scrap with a tiger.

Robot Wars Counterpart: Panic Attack

4. Bears (multiple species, not pandas)
I know you probably think that a bear is just going to get kicked in the face by an elephant and that would be it, but bears are pretty mental when they’re not hibernating. They’re a lot more agile than an elephant as well, so there’s that.

Like the other entrants, bears are big, strong, and quick. They can swim like Michael Phelps and if they didn’t spend so long sleeping they could maybe move up the table in years to come.

Robot Wars Counterpart: Shunt

5. Elephant

They’re just huge, aren’t they?

Robot Wars Counterpart: Sir Killalot

6. Komodo Dragon
Komodo dragons are scary. The chances are that any animal bitten by a Komodo dragon will eventually die, the issue is the animal will probably kill the dragon before this happens. For example, if a hippo takes on a komodo, and after a good few minutes the hippo ends the komodo, but not before being bitten, maybe a couple of weeks later the hippo will perish. But we don’t know because Komodo dragons only live on a few islands in Indonesia and I really hope they fucking stay there.

Made up almost entirely of muscle, a Komodo dragon can grow to be three meters long and can weigh up to 150 pounds. They’re very aggressive and their saliva contains some god-awful shit that weakens its prey and kills it over time. Maybe if they lived in a more competitive environment and their bite was immediately fatal they would be number one. But they’re not.

Robot WarsCounterpart: Hypno Disc

7. Gorilla
Maybe gorillas should be further up, but they’re not as strong as bears or as quick as the big cats, and they’re a bit too closely related to humans to be any good against an elephant.

They could take on a croc though, it would be bloody but I believe they’d get it done (on land). I’m not sure how, maybe they’d use a weapon. Brain over brawn.

Robot Wars Counterpart: Chaos 2

8. Saltwater crocodile
The fact that salties are so low on this list really shows how fine the margins are in this sport. Very few animals can live with a crocodile in the water but on land sadly, they do not have the high ground.

If there weren’t so many of these jokers getting caught by Australians on documentaries or ending up in zoos, I would maybe place them higher than komodos. Crocs can jump really high out of the water too - pretty useless in a scrap but quite impressive.

Robot Wars Counterpart: Dead Metal

9 & 10 are the anaconda and honey badger but I can’t be arsed to do any more okay.

Cheers.