It'll be an intense match-up between two of history's greatest giant robots, but who will win?

Honestly I see this fight ending in Prime's favor, no contest. The Gundam has amazing capabilities for it's time, being able to shoot down whole battleships and take on even Char Aznable, but Amuro Ray, it's pilot, has little experience compared to Optimus Prime.

Optimus had been fighting the Decepticons for nearly 5 million years before the Autobots and Decepticons crash-landed on prehistoric Earth. He also displayed abilities that the original Gundam severely lacked. Episodes of the G1 Transformers cartoon showed Optimus crashing through a rock wall UNHARMED, channeling laser blasts back at his attackers, picking up an oil tanker AND THROWING IT, summoning his body parts after they'd be detached, used Megatron's transformation to shoot down Starscream WHO WAS SEVERAL MILES ABOVE EARTH at the time, and the only reason he died in the 80s Transformers movie was because Hot Rod screwed up.

Honestly, how can the Gundam compete with Optimus Prime?

I don't know jack about Gundam, so I can't play. Thanks for bringing back some childhood memories of G1 transformers though.

Even his stupidly handled death because Habsro wanted to make room for new toys?

Are you talking about Transformers: The Movie? I loved it as a kid.

Yes it's a great movie, but the decision to kill off so many major characters, INCLUDING Optimus Prime, just to make room for new toys was it's glaring flaw.

Hmmm. I'll tell you this: Before the 3rd season was over, I was so tired of the copy/paste formula of every episode, with the Autobots chasing the Decepticons away at  the end, shooting at them as they flew away, that before I quit watching it, I was, briefly, actively cheering for the Decepticons. I was 10-11 around then. So, when I saw the movie, 2 years after it came out,  I really liked that the Decepticons were finally doing something other than tripping over their own feet. Finally, something was on the line. The threat of loss was real. Besides, the cartoon show itself wasn't much more than a 24 minute toy commercial. They didn't kill anybody to make way for new characters, but the roster was always steadily expanding.

Guess you forgot about all the kids who left the theater crying because all their favorite Transformers had died that night. XD

Ha. I don't doubt it. It was very different from the TV show. I think AVGN even mentioned something along the lines of crying kids in the theater on one of his videos. I can say for a fact that the Prime death scene hit me pretty good. No bawling, but I'm pretty sure there were some tears.

I bet. Fuck you, Megatron.

I'm hoping Prime will win. Death Battle always managers to find some obscure moment where a writer lost their shit and use it as an advantage. They'll say 'Optimus Prime flew to Cybertron and back to earth. Cybertron is outside of our Solar System so he had to be traveling 800,000 times the speed of light"

We'll see, though. Should be fun.