Different rule set, Battlebots the entire robot can be a weapon just about. One of the robots I saw had a Drone alongside it for example.
Prefer the robots and fights over Robot Wars, there's more variety and carnage, but everything in between is kinda... well... yeh... American.
I find the fights much more entertaining, because things actually happen. Robots get destroyed in giant explosions, pieces get removed one by one. Sometimes there's an upset. Sometimes a bot comes from behind to pull out the win. Overall I watch for the fights and Robots Wars is just plain . . . boring in that front. The bad is that American TV insists on there being a 'bad guy' for you to hate and root against, which gets old. There's also a very ESPN, American style of hosting and MC-ing the show, which is mildly annoying/formulaic, but slightly more entertaining than the Robot Wars reboot, which was sometimes boring or even non-existent. It may not even be that the battles are that much worse in Robot Wars, but they just aren't filmed in an exciting way. Sometimes a robot will be destroyed, and there's no replay because none of the cameras even caught it. You'll just get a camera cut to a smoldering crater and the announcer saying, "Oh, it looks like so-and-so got completely destroyed while we were busy putting the kettle on." It would probably be pretty okay if they just got their act together.
The creator of Razor, there robot in battle bots got decapitated. It even has flame throwers on it. BBC with its health and safety rules would never allow such things. Most of the best fights are on You tube so you can skip all the mc and commentary. The actual show is very American in every way, and is a struggle to watch. I tend to just watch the fights and skip the rest.
Better than "most," they have every single battle on youtube. I'm not sure if they were loaded onto the playlist in order, so you can look up the tree yourself and watch them in order if you want. But really. The fights are simply more entertaining. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDe0CguuqcMD6Ee3rQfJBkUCKzilzx1lF https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDe0CguuqcMA-fu_fwgE1vIFA0IA2PsTP
