We’re in for a spicy match tonight - over the course of this contest Trapdoorspyder has emerged as the villain of the piece, and the fans just love to hate him. Here he is now, entering the stadium - the boos are starting up - but oh, he seems to be pushing his elderly granny along in a wheelchair, oh, that’s blunting some of the audience response, the stands seem to be quieting down - WHAT! He’s just tipped granny OUT of the wheelchair and asked the hottest person in the audience that he could find to hop in instead! That’s his grandma, sprawls on the floor, while he is flirting with his front-row floozy! Oh, what a villain, what an vicious brute!

By contract, here’s chiiika, dressed in a white power-suit, looking like she’s ready for nothing less than business in this bout. Yvette doesn’t have the strongest record in this contest, in three bouts she’s chalked up one win, against Credit Score: F, but she’s the firm crowd favourite tonight.

In position 4 starts Annoy-o-Tron, which seems to have been redesigned to look more… menacing? Lots of extra spikes, and it seems to have a mohawk now. Other than that its configuration seems to be unchanged.

In position 10 we have Cool Hand Luke, the house bot that herds horses and axes bots. Cool Hand Luke is perfectly capable of knocking out a competitor if left to its own devices, so both Operators will hopefully be cognisant of its threat and will have planned to work around it.

And in position 16 it’s Yvette, similarly unchanged in configuration.

The blue light is on and so is this Bout! Trapdoorspyder jams on his controller, sending Annoy-o-Tron into a 180 - it’s facing outside of the arena, towards the bumpers - and Yvette jumps forward before clattering into the back of Cool Hand Luke. The house bot is unperturbed, facing the other direction - and then Annoy-o-Tron jams had backwards, sketching an elaborate bypass pattern to push across the entire arena to position 19.

Luke moves into the area vacated by Annoy, heading into square 7, and Yvette - oh goodness - Yvette pulls the same move again, ramming Luke hard from behind, and why is she picking a fight with the house bot when Annoy-o-Tron is right there? He’s not even doing anything, just sitting smugly on the sidelines, and now Luke is turning around - he won’t take being hit twice - and Yvette seems to be stuck in place, watching it happen.

A grapple and three swift axe-blows later and that’s it - it’s all over for Yvette. Trapdoorspyder smugly steps into the middle of the arena, as if conducting the audience’s boos, while chiiika gives a small wave and then heads out through the Operator tunnel, disappointed by unbowed. Over the tannoy comes the announcement -

Annoy-o-Tron wins by TKO!