Fish and chips is the dish that looks easy until you try it at home and end up with soggy batter and gray fish. The fix is two-fold: the batter has to be cold (ice in the beer, fridge for the flour) and the oil has to be screaming hot (375°F, no waver). Cold batter into hot oil is the violent thermodynamic event that makes the crust shatter the way it is supposed to.
Aaron Cuschieri runs The Dearborn in Chicago and was featured in Charlotte Magazine after this win. His batter was cold. His oil was hot. His fish, per the broadcast, was "flaky and bright." Bobby's, per the same broadcast, was "dense." Dense fish is fish that cooked from the outside in too slowly — which means the oil was not hot enough. Or the batter was not cold enough. Either way, the round was won in the prep, not the fry.