[Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on June 22, 2014. This is before the reboot seasons that are airing today. As such this article focuses entirely on robots from the Comedy Central era of the show.]
I write about BattleBots and robot combat pretty often. I can’t help it, the motorsport is one of my favorite things on the planet and mark my words this will become a staple of this new site. Back when I wrote for RFSHQ I spearheaded a column called “BattleBots Update” that ran for two seasons and I even provided coverage for the RoboGames TV special that was on Science Channel a few years ago. One of these days I’ll write something about Robot Wars or Robotica but until then here’s some more nonsense about something from my past that I give way too much of a shit about. Keeping in line with my enjoyment of awful things I’ve always been more tickled by robots that sucked rather than ones that won championships. I get it, the robot that cost $10,000 to build is going to win because it has armor made of space polymers and shoots laser beams, whatever. I’m more impressed by the bots that some guy slapped together in his garage from a scrap lawnmower and was blown up after a single hit.
I set out to find the absolute worst robots in BattleBots history. A couple years ago I wrote a piece about the most one-sided fights of all time but even the losers of those matches were still “decent” robots. The Missing Link, Super Chiabot, Trimangle, and even The Wacky Compass all had to actually beat opponents to make it to the televised rounds of the event. I won’t try to deny the fact that they were all pretty stupid designs but on the other hand they weren’t the “worst” robots to enter the arena, not by a long shot. I wanted to dig up some robots that never won a single fight ever. These are bots that really sucked; the ones that entered the arena, some multiple times, and lost every single time.
Before this article fully begins I’d like to give mad props to Badnik96, AlexGRFan97, Madlooney6, and the rest of the staff of the BattleBots Wiki for their relentless work in amassing photos and data that has helped make this article possible. If you’re a fan of BattleBots their work is absolutely worth your time to check out (and contribute to).
The ten robots that follow all have win/loss records (in BattleBots) that begin with the number zero. They are:
Record: 0-1
Prompt Critical was a super heavyweight robot whose elusiveness piqued my interest back in the year 2000 when it was mentioned off hand and given about five seconds of screen time as Bil Dwyer stated that it had lost to Mechadon. A quick clip of Prompt Critical was shown with its bizarre weapon spinning and flailing about and that’s all I ever saw of the robot for 14 years. Mechadon, for those who aren’t familiar with the sport, was essentially a giant 470+ pound six-legged walking crab monster with no active weapon other than its stomping claws. How someone loses to Mechadon has always intrigued me since the robot, while terrifying, might as well have been named “Automatic Points”. Prompt Critical managed to lose to Mechadon by a knock out. It has bothered me for far too long to see just how the hell this robot operated.
It was brought to my attention that Team Mutant Robots (more on them later) put their archive of fight videos on their website one of which being the Season 1.0 super heavyweight rumble featuring Prompt Critical. I was floored. After over a decade the mystery would finally be solved. I finally got to see a decent shot of Prompt Critical since the robot was absent for its official BattleBots photo and the only pictures I could find were from a bad angle. Behold, the glory that was Prompt Critical:
It kind of looks like a tank if you squint.
Was it worth the wait? Does the mystery of the robot live up to the version I cooked up in my head all those years ago? Hell fucking yes. That is a robot whose lid appears to be made out of a piece of plywood and the top to a portable barbecue pit that’s been spray painted black. It’s weapon, if you can even call it that, is what looks like an off-set hammer mounted on a spinning platter attached to yet another piece of plywood. I can’t identify what Prompt Critical’s drive components are but I’m willing to bet whatever it is touched a trash can at some point in time before ending up on that thing. Absolutely no part of that robot looks like it would last even if it were fighting a bunch of lightweights and yet here is Prompt Critical toting what looks to be an upside down wheelbarrow in a rumble full of saw blades, spring-loaded hammers, spinning body shells, pneumatic spikes, hydraulic jaws, and ramming devices.
The BattleBots Wiki describes Prompt Critical’s loss to Mechadon as “self destruction” and honestly I’ll buy that. The robot’s weapon wasn’t centered or balanced properly and when Diesector shoved the robot into the arena wall during the rumble the top of its chassis came off and the robot was knocked out. The fact that the builders of Prompt Critical even managed to find 300+ pounds’ worth of crap to hide under their trash can lid of a robot is what surprises me the most.
Record: 0-1
Much like Prompt Critical, Drill-O-Dillo was another super heavyweight whose appearance eluded me for far too long. It too failed to show up when the BattleBots photographers were taking the official pictures of all the robots competing in the show’s second season and the only photograph I could find from Team Nightmare’s website suspiciously showed the robot with its wheels precariously balanced atop what was quite obviously not a functional piece of machinery. Drill-O-Dillo’s weapon was clearly a spinning rock chisel thing. A drill, hence the name. Normally this would be funny but it wasn’t because the pun was bad and you’d have to be an idiot to bring a rock drill into an event where there are absolutely no rocks.
Drill-O-Dillo was drawn to fight Gray Matter, a robot you may recall from the rumble with Prompt Critical. Gray Matter was the robot with the monster truck wheels and giant spike that proceeded to run over everyone. Under most circumstances I would make fun of Gray Matter because you’d have to be stupid to enter the super heavyweight category with what amounted to a spike with wheels; you’re outclassed in every single instance, hell even Drill-O-Dillo here has better weaponry. Gray Matter’s spike was different however. In Season 1.0 Gray Matter took that spike, shoved it right up the ass of Minion (the reigning champion), and blew Minion’s cutting saw to pieces in one of the most spectacular highlights of the season. Remember, Drill-O-Dillo was missing its wheels in the only photo of it that I could find. Something did not add up.
Oh look, there’s that wheel!
Gray Matter’s spike managed to go all the way through one of Drill-O-Dillo’s wheels. The spike entered the robot and as Gray Matter kicked it into reverse gear Drill-O-Dillo’s wheel and the entire fucking drive axle of the robot came out with it. With no axle to rest upon, the other wheel just kinda fell off and that’s why Drill-O-Dillo was only ever seen without its tires. I don’t know if that’s because Drill-O-Dillo was simply an exceptional piece of crap or if it has something to do with Gray Matter’s spike and dark forces. Whatever the reason, Drill-O-Dillo managed to lose its entire drive system in a single hit and featured a weapon that probably would’ve sucked against even Prompt Critical.
I’ve taken it upon myself to salvage the original clips of this fight from the long-defunct BattleBots.com website and I’ve assembled them into a short video that you can download to see this ass-kicking for yourself: CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE VIDEO.
Record: 0-2
A couple entries ago I mentioned Team Mutant Robots had done me a solid by providing video proof that Prompt Critical was as much of a piece of crap as I imagined it to be. Their creations aren’t exempt from the title “Worst BattleBot Ever” however, even if Diesector eventually won two BattleBots championships. That header image up above doesn’t say “Diesector” anyways, does it? No, this is an entry about Root Canal, a middleweight robot from Mutant Robots that showed up to two BattleBots events and lost both times.
Root Canal was a robot whose design is best explained in the context of when it was actually created. Root Canal featured what’s known as “omni-directional” wheels meaning that while pretty much all robots can drive forward, backward, and turn left and right Root Canal was able to drive whatever the hell direction it wanted to. Like sideways. The robot was meant to be super mobile and maneuverable so that it could bring its cutting disc in for some serious damage. That’s fine and dandy and all but the bigger issue here is that the robot didn’t actually work. Onmi-directional wheels were a gimmick that a lot of “advanced” builders tried out and in no case that I can think of did it work out. Team Whyachi (of Son of Whyachi fame) even tried out the whole “drive sideways” thing with Y-Pout and that robot didn’t make the list simply because one robot with a stupid drive system was enough.
Root Canal killer. Built by a furry.
The problem with Root Canal is that it was too fragile. See that ridiculously simplistic wedge up there? That’s Cuad the Annihilator. It beat Root Canal in its debut fight by doing nothing more than slamming it into the wall which broke Root Canal and disabled it. Cuad was a robot with exactly two moving parts and I’ll let you guess as to what they were and the robot was so simplistically and/or poorly designed that there’s a gaudy hunk of metal sticking out into the wedge to keep the robot from doing a wheelie when it accelerated. Root Canal was more or less an expensive jewelry box and in its second fight against Whirlwind — a simple thwack bot — Root Canal was hit a grand total of one time and one of its precious omni wheels blew up and scattered little beads and pieces everywhere. Whirlwind then proceeded to dent in the side of Root Canal which further crippled its drivetrain.
Root Canal’s builder said he drew inspiration from the video game Quake when he designed Root Canal. Specifically, he could not play Quake without strafing side to side and wanted to capture this movement in a robot and apply it to a sport where that method of driving has clearly led his robot to an infinite number of victories. Look, just because you saw it in a video game doesn’t mean it’s going to work in real life that’s why there aren’t any BattleBots that can play a fucking ocarina.
Some of you might be quick to cry foul and claim that Root Canal actually took second place at a recent BattleBots event. Three things about that:
- That was Root Canal rebuilt as a Heavyweight.
- It was not a “classic” BattleBots event.
- The robot wasn’t using stupid-ass omni-wheels.
Record: 0-2
It goes without saying that Green Dragon did not make it to the televised one-on-one rounds of BattleBots, that’s a given. It did make a brief appearance in the Season 2.0 lightweight rumble and if memory serves me right it didn’t do much of anything. That was the main flaw of Green Dragon, really: not doing anything. Durability wasn’t a virtue the robot subscribed to either but we’ll get into that in just a bit. Green Dragon was a lightweight competitor whose original design (the one pictured) boasted an incorrectly centered saw blade, two giant wheels, and a ridiculous dragon decal that makes even me cringe. Green Dragon’s second incarnation was simply a large trapezoid with the same saw blade embedded in one of the wedges. Both robots weren’t very good and both of them lost by KO but there’s a special kind of crappiness associated with the first dragon.
A lot of people make fun of the Scrap Daddy team and its robots without much rhyme or reason; they get a lot of flack because visually they were terrible and most them didn’t perform too well. I’ll give them that much. Spoiler alert, Scrap Daddy did not make this list because while the designs were pretty bad some of them actually won battles; Green Dragon was one of those battles. For all the rude remarks Scrap Daddy LW 55 received for being blown to bits by Ziggo in one of the greatest mismatches in BattleBots history here is a robot that Scrap Daddy was able to conquer. Here is a robot that’s worse than Scrap Daddy.
KNOCK OUT VICTORY
In Green Dragon’s only Season 2.0 battle it rammed into Scrap Daddy LW 55… and lost a whole tire. That’s right, the entire wheel just rolled off and hilariously enough made it all the way across the arena. If the video was still available on BattleBots.com I’d show it to you but unfortunately it’s not so instead just do your best to picture the robot above minus one wheel with said wheel idly coasting down the Battlebox by itself while Scrap Daddy LW 55 does that stupid waddle-driving thing it was known for. True, Green Dragon’s missing tire was not a direct result of anything Scrap Daddy LW 55 did and was more than likely a case of “what are set screws” but allow me to respond to that observation with a hypothetical question: How many tires did Scrap Daddy (any of them) lose because the builder forgot to put a fucking screw in one of them? That’s exactly what I thought.
Record: 0-2
There is nothing noteworthy about this middleweight robot and I mean that in absolute terms. If you took the gaudy red spray painted name off the front of this robot and left it as a black wedge its name would magically change to “This Is Why There Are Untelevised Qualifying Rounds In BattleBots”. Psyche is the only robot in this list that did not have an active weapon and the only reason why this robot made the list and the other eight million weaponless wedges that never won didn’t is because Psyche was given a very special television demo against Evil Cheese Wedge, a robot operated by Bil Dwyer… the host of the show. Notice how I said “operated” and not “built”. Bil Dwyer didn’t build his robot, he can’t even build a goddamned joke. Comedy Central bought a trashy robot on eBay because another robot, Slap ‘Em Silly, was bought on eBay and that was apparently something worth making fun of at the time. Comedy Central, ladies and gentlemen.
Also, why the hell am I talking about Evil Cheese Wedge? This entry is about Psyche. In its only televised match Psyche was inexplicably driven by Gary Coleman. No, I’m fucking serious. Look:
This is literally Gary Coleman.
The phrase “Bil Dwyer you’re going down” became somewhat of an in-joke in the robot combat community after this fight aired. For some reason, and I don’t know why, Gary Coleman was sent to BattleBots by UGO Networks (some random Gen X-pandering web company) to hang out with Team Nightmare and namedrop UGO in post-fight interviews. No, I can’t explain that. I have no idea what UGO even produced and furthermore I have no idea why Gary Coleman was chosen to go dick around on BattleBots of all things. Maybe he was going to be late on rent that month and needed some quick cash?
Psyche was inexplicably retconned to “Infectious Tattoo” in its demo fight where it was promptly knocked out near the Pulverizer. Either that or no one turned Psyche’s remote on before handing it to Gary Coleman. Rather than count out Psyche the officials let the fight continue because I guess having a D-list celebrity standing around holding a radio transmitter while laughing passed for “good television” in the early 00’s. Why they chose to give Gary Coleman this particular robot has bothered me for a very long time. Why did they give him Psyche? Why not literally any other middleweight robot? Evil Cheese Wedge had enough ground clearance to park a truck under so I guess the goal here was to pick a shitty robot that made it look good by proxy? If that’s the case why Psyche and not some gimmicky robot that didn’t look like a doorstop?
Record: 0-2
RACC (Robot Action Combat Cluster) was a lightweight multi-bot that competed in the Long Beach 1999 BattleBots event. Normally multi-bots are pretty ineffective but when you’re dealing with the lightweight division the entrants are already fairly small and compact so there isn’t much lost in the way of power when you essentially split a bot in two. RACC was a pre-TV era robot built partially by Will Wright, the guy who created SimCity. The red thing on the right, when separate from RACC, was named “X11” and was a robot based upon a middleweight champion from the original Robot Wars. If the gray blob on the left had a name it has long since been lost to time and the thing in the middle was known as “EEP” or “Emergency Escape Pod”. Yeah, whereas most multi-bots consisted of two machines RACC dared to make it three.
The reason for the EEP’s existence, other than to continue the Robot Action League’s apparent obsession with acronyms, was a safeguard against being counted out of a fight in the event that one of the two main parts of RACC became incapacitated; the EEP would be deployed so that only 33% of the robot would be considered “knocked out” rather than the necessary 50% for the robot to be counted out. There was a lot of ingenuity that went behind RACC which is why I can’t understand how it never managed to win a single fight.
Sweet jump there, X11.
Well, that might have something to do with it. Apparently even with all the zeal of having two robots fight at the same time, one of them armed with a whirling death blade and the other featuring the ability to fart out a minibot, RACC was unable to impress the crowd that attended the Long Beach 1999 event and lost by two “audience” decisions. It was a different time back then. The robot in the photo above letting X11 get some sweet air is known as The Crusher and if that screenshot is anything to go by the rest of that fight probably unfolded with RACC being thrown around. Its other loss is a little more pragmatic, however: Spike of Doom. Just what was “Spike of Doom”?
Another damn multi-bot.
Spike of Doom consisted of a silver bulldozer ramp (Wedge of Doom) and a two-wheeled clamping machine with its internals exposed (Spike). Spike of Doom didn’t feature fancy paintjobs, an “EEP”, or even active weapons for that matter and yet it still beat RACC. Look, when your fight consists of what is essentially a miniature rumble with five robots and you’re unable to beat opponents who are using the same exact gimmick as you and you can’t entertain the crowd enough to win an audience decision I… honestly I don’t have a snarky comment to say to that because that’s just utter failure. I guess the only way you could do worse is to take a ladybug sandbox and put wheels on it an- oh wait.
Record: 0-4
Rim Tin Tin was a lightweight I wanted to like. Every time it showed up in the tournament I expected it to at least beat someone, if that’ll help clarify what I meant in that first sentence. Rim Tin Tin changed its appearance over the course of the four BattleBots events it was brought to but for the most part the “core” of the robot stayed the same each time: a robot built inside of a tire rim armed with a lifting device of some sort. Everything about Rim Tin Tin at least made for a “decent” robot. Rim Tin Tin had a name whose punny reference was just dated enough to be amusing, its weapon wasn’t the worst piece of crap brought into the tournament, and it was an admittedly original design that I would argue photographed nicely. What I’m trying to say is that there’s no chance in hell Rim Tin Tin would’ve stood up to Backlash or Ziggo for longer than twenty seconds but it would have at least been able to beat the other lightweights in this article and yet it didn’t.
I don’t like dogs, and even moreso I don’t like dog actors, but Rim Tin Tin was neither a dog nor a dog actor, just named after one. It was a robot built inside of a car tire and adorned with stupid decals and a questionable paint job. In the robot’s maiden voyage against Rampage it almost won. Rampage abruptly stopped moving and began to smoke which would have been great for Rim Tin Tin had it not also spontaneously blown up and quit moving just moments prior. Rim Tin Tin is also special in that, not counting Psyche because its “fight” was a demo, it is the only robot in this list to have one of its many losses televised. In Season 3.0 a newly rebuilt Rim Tin Tin squared off against Hammerhead (a rambot) and managed to perform fairly well. “Fairly well” in this case means it didn’t just drop dead in the middle of the arena like last time. Then, without provocation, the piston hazard in the arena went all “you’re doing too well in this fight time to change that” and up-ended the tiny robot giving a victory to Hammerhead.
Good boy, now play dead.
Between BattleBots’ third and fourth seasons Rim Tin Tin was completely rebuilt, armed with a larger lifting device, painted jet black… and then promptly lost two more times. The first loss came to Whirligig which was essentially a thwackbot and the only way to actually lose to a thwackbot is to self-immolate or do whatever Rim Tin Tin did to end up losing this match by a judges’ decision. Speaking of judges’ decisions, Rim Tin Tin lost its final match to Paladin in the fifth season with a 42-3 result. Rim Tin Tin managed to score three whole points. I’ve never seen the fight and a video of it doesn’t exist online but I’m willing to bet those three points were pity points awarded just for showing up and having the balls to enter the arena with a robot that clearly wasn’t cut out for the sport.
Record: 0-4
Oh no it’s Blendo, Jamie “MythBuster” Hyneman’s Heavyweight robot that was so destructive in the 1995 and 1997 Robot Wars tournaments that the event officials forced it to forfeit because it was a safety hazard. “Why, Draco?” You might ask. “Why put Blendo in your list of the worst BattleBots of all time, and at number THREE to boot?” Yeah, Blendo might have received some special awards for being so destructive in Robot Wars that it posed a safety hazard to the audience and it also might’ve been one of the BattleBots that received official merchandising but that doesn’t exactly address the issue of Blendo itself being a giant spinning turd in the arena.
As amazing and as talented of an engineer as Jamie Hyneman is, Blendo sadly is obsoletion realized. Full body spinners have the potential to be absolutely devastating machines but like any other breed of robot they have to “evolve” with the sport or die. Blendo died. As early as the Long Beach 1999 BattleBots event Blendo was immediately trumped by Punjar, a robot that it had delivered a one-hit knock out to in Robot Wars just two years prior. Punjar topped Blendo a second time in an off-the-record grudge match at a later BattleBots event as well. Punjar evolved, Blendo didn’t.
“Don’t mind me, just starting my robot.”
Blendo’s spinning dome required an electric power drill to start its gasoline engine. There’s nothing wrong with “dirty” engineering (gasoline engines, hydraulics, etc) in a sport that’s largely comprised of electric parts but there is a pretty glaring problem with designs that, when hit too hard, can spontaneously stop working and subsequently be impossible to get running again. Spoiler alert, that’s what happened to Blendo while fighting Gold Digger — a Heavyweight thwackbot. middleweight is where I draw the line for robots that amount to a sledgehammer and two goddamned wheels so I have and will relentlessly make fun of thwackbots in the upper weight classes. I considered putting Gold Digger on this list because of how much I hate it but oh wait Gold Digger didn’t lose every fight it was in because Blendo fucking showed up and ruined goddamned everything.
How about the MythBusters all get together to test the myth that Blendo can actually win a fight? My money’s on “no” so at least we’ll get to see them blow the robot up at the end of the episode.
Record: 0-7 (total)
This might seem like a cheap entry in the list but honestly it wouldn’t truly be a “Draco list” if I didn’t find some way to shoehorn in a multi entry under some stupid reason. For Team Black Ops Six it just so happens I have said reason. With more combined losses than any single robot in this list (even the yet to be revealed #1 robot) Team Black Ops Six infiltrates the second place spot on this list bringing them and their robots closer to victory than they’ve ever been but still falling just short. Across all four of this team’s fantastic robots they have four losses by knock out, one loss by a judges’ decision that was nowhere near close, one loss by forfeit, and finally one loss by what Team Nightmare considers a “TKO”. There doesn’t appear to be an official BattleBots declaration of what actually constitutes a “technical knock out” but by looking up the televised fights that Team Nightmare has noted as such it appears to be a KO loss where the robot in question knocks itself out. So, yeah. Team Black Ops Six also has one of those losses under their belt. They have at least one loss of every single type there is in BattleBots, what an amazing team.
The question now is what exactly did their robots look like? Well, they had four of them: AWOL, MIA, Black Ops, and Prototype 4. Each robot was entered into one of the four weight classes in BattleBots but not all four robots competed at the same events at the same time, they were spread out so their shittiness could be truly savored. Real quick, here’s a breakdown of the bots in the event that clicking additional hyperlinks is too much work for you. AWOL was a lightweight thwackbot (I think) that had a rotary saw blade on a stick (seen pictured above). MIA was a middleweight wedge and that’s it. Black Ops was a heavyweight thwackbot and as such is now the object of the most derision in this article because I was unable to include Gold Digger as a heavyweight thwackbot in this list. Finally, Prototype-4 was a super heavyweight robot that had what appeared to be a spinning drill of some sort but looked more like the handle end of a corkscrew. Since this entry in the list is about the team itself, here they are posing with AWOL:
The entire next paragraph is a snarky picture comment.
Look at these fucking jokers. There are literally an infinite number of Call of Duty MLG jokes I can make about these asshats. Since the idiot culture surrounding Call of Duty wasn’t a thing back when this photo was taken there’s a possibility that the builders are actual soldiers and if that’s the case then I would feel pretty badly about making fun of servicemen but I’m banking on the notion that their whole army getup was just a charade and they sincerely thought and believed they were badasses carrying around airsoft guns in the pits. As mentioned, that’s AWOL they’re posing with. AWOL was a thwack bot and two of its three losses were by KO. It’s third loss was a judges’ decision against another thwackbot-esque machine, Locomotion. Holy shit. If you have a thwackbot and it loses to another thwackbot then Bil Dwyer is allowed to come to your house and personally kick you in the dick. It’s in the BattleBots rules, I swear.
Four of Team Black Ops Six’s seven losses were by knock out. All of their robots were invertible meaning that none of them could’ve possibly lost by being flipped over; I’m led to believe that they were simply outclassed in every single possible scenario. By the official count there was a grand total of exactly one fight where one of their robots was still moving when the match ended. The knock out losses are funny and all but I’m more intrigued by the “TKO” that Prototype 4 managed to finagle. The robot was a tire with a tiny spinning drill. I really want to know how it self destructed but I’m guessing this will be my new “Prompt Critical” and I won’t find out for another 14 years.
Record: 0-4
I’m pleased to say that the robot seated at number one in this list has literally not driven more than the length of the Battlebox in the four “fights” it’s been in. Abbatoir was built by Team Wetware whose family of robots within BattleBots has an impressive twelve losses under their belt, half of them by forfeit. The only reason why Team Black Ops Six made it into this list as a team entry and not Team Wetware is because Wetware’s record is actually 1-12 and that single solitary win made them ineligible for this list. In fact the robot with that single victory, Mr. Bonestripper, almost took this very spot because it has a staggering six losses (four of them by forfeit) but unfortunately it actually managed to beat someone so Mr. Bonestripper gets to skate away from the firing range with exactly one BattleBots “WINNER” medallion. Abbatoir is a close second however and even though it only has one forfeit loss its story more than makes up for it.
So the thing is I don’t actually know what the fuck Abbatoir’s problem was. Compounding that, I don’t even know what Team Wetware’s problem was. Generally speaking you’re supposed to bring a working robot to BattleBots because a robot that is able to move is kind of integral to the the sport. There is a term used to describe robots that don’t move, it’s called “knocked out”. Speaking of, two of Abbatoir’s losses were by knock out. Against Ricon all that literally happened was Ricon rammed into Abbatoir before it even started moving and broke it. Abbatoir proceeded to drive into the middle of the arena and caught fire. That actually happened. Abbatoir’s arena introduction stated the robot was ranked number eight. Out of how many robots, four? How did Abbatoir get ranked in the first place? Was there an event official giving out ranks to everyone who said “what” and Abbatoir’s driver wasn’t paying attention?
Against Rammstein the robot lost by a quick KO however according to the report on Team Loki’s official website Abbatoir tapped out before Rammstein could line up the coup de grace blow. Does that mean one of those “knock out” losses was actually a forfeit?
It’s French for “slaughterhouse”, by the way.
Abbatoir has lost twice by forfeit and once by a KO where the robot essentially barely left its starting square. Seriously, its weapon wasn’t even able to make more than one rotation before Ricon broke the goddamned thing. Abbatoir’s best loss had to have been in BattleBots’ second season where, against Kenny’s Revenge, Abbatoir lost in a 44-1 decision. Alright, I made fun of Rim Tin Tin up there for losing 42-3 but Jesus fucking Christ Team Wetware, ONE POINT?! How do you even get one point in a fight? No, really. How the fuck do you manage to only get one point in a BattleBots fight? Each of the judges have 15 points to give out and in this given scenario apparently Abbatoir was given one point for “strategy”. I realize the opportunity for this has come and gone but whoever gave Abbatoir that point needed to be fired on the spot. In its fight against Kenny’s Revenge the robot literally drove straight into its opponent’s weaponry, backed up over the arena saw blades, and then stopped working. At no point in this fight did Abbatoir’s weapon even begin to spin.
The most hilarious thing about this whole stupid ordeal is that after Abbatoir’s loss to Kenny’s Revenge it disappeared for two whole seasons only to return in Season 5.0… and forfeit.
I know building a BattleBot takes a lot of time and money and effort and that’s why Abbatoir is actually one of my favorite robots in the sport. I’ve gone through the trouble of digging through all of my BattleBots archives (with the help of the curators of the BattleBots Wiki) to bring you this montage of Abbatoir’s finest moments presented in the classiest way possible:
You’re welcome.
– Draco