BattleBots: Bounty Hunters E6

[BattleBots: Bounty Hunters is available on Discovery+.]

Welcome back to BattleBots Update, the only website of its kind to have lasted as long as it has without its webmaster going crazy. Or not. Maybe that was a bad lead-in, let me try again. Welcome back to BattleBots Update where mental health is our number one priority. There, that’s better.

We’ve reached the final episode of Bounty Hunters and so far this miniseries has been filled with surprises and upsets left and right. It’s also been filled with cannon fodder robots begging for more camera time even if it means certain destruction so I just want you all to know I am all for that 101%. Greats have fallen, bounties have been claimed, but they’ve saved perhaps the most explosive bounty for last: Son of Whyachi. One of only two former champions in Bounty Hunters Son of Whyachi is part of the sport’s old guard, a relic of the Comedy Central years where the show was a wild west of bizarre designs and yes that includes Son of Whyachi itself.

You know the drill by now, eight teams have signed up for the Whyachi bounty but only one of them can rise to the occasion to challenge the big boss. Among the competitors are Kraken, Gigabyte, and Perfect Phoenix. Copperhead and Chronos also get to meet each other again in a rematch right out of the gate. Finally Big Dill, Rusty, and Grabot are also in the bracket. What the fuck is Grabot going to do to Son of Whyachi? Grab onto one of its hammers and just get spun around like a fucking maniac? Chris and Kenny open the show with a dynasty joke that falls flatter than Lock-Jaw’s tires after a bad day. I think it’s time to start the article.

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RUSTY vs. KRAKEN

Can we just appreciate the balls on David Eaton to think that Rusty has what it takes to tango with Son of Whyachi? What the fuck is Rusty going to do to a robot with a 100+ pound spinning triangular mass of spiked hammers spun by no less than eight fucking electric motors? Then again way back in the Season 3.0 days of the show Son of Whyachi was very nearly bested by this thing called “Shaka” which was literally a stripped down power chair with some leopard print fabric wrapped around it so who fucking knows anything is possible. Rusty had a crappy debut season with a dreadfully boring zero hit KO win over Sporkinok followed up by back to back KO losses to both Beta and Sawblaze. Rusty was basically the robot that was fed to these other two in order to bolster their “chances at making it into the tournament”. Props to David though for smiling and taking it in stride that his robot is only good for automatic points and nothing else.

As we near the end of Bounty Hunters I guess the producers were hard-pressed to find enough asses to fill all the seats in each bracket. Mind you I think this miniseries was being taped alongside the main tournament in order to space out the fights and allow teams who were still in the running for the Giant Nut to get their robots ready. It’s why we haven’t seen Hydra show up in a Bounty Hunters episode. Kraken gets to ride the ride a second time even though last time around it reached the bounty finals. Kraken sparred with Claw Viper and outlasted it when Claw Viper started falling apart. Against SMEE we saw Kraken just swing the wide robot around and bite down through its weak top armor. Kraken advanced on to fight Gruff and I think that could’ve been anyone’s game but instead Kraken arrived wrapped in fucking aluminum foil so Gruff just broiled it alive to make some baked seafood.

The fight starts with a swing and a miss from Rusty whose spike might actually be uniquely suited for this fight; Kraken’s pneumatic biting jaw works by way of a large airbag so if that reciprocating drill thing can come down at just the right piece of real estate we might see Kraken pull a Budd Dwyer. For now though Kraken seizes the upper hand immediately and bites down on Rusty’s frame managing to squeeze one of its teeth between the tube steel and polycarbonate armor. Kraken turns on its flamethrower but doesn’t leave it on long enough to do any meaningful damage. You don’t half ass a flamethrower. You either lay on the trigger or you accept that your “flamethrower” is just a piece of shit that’s on your robot because you really wanted to make it onto television. Rusty gets dragged to the Pulverizer which fails to do anything because it mostly misses Rusty and instead gets tangled up in Rusty’s weapon. Nice shot. Here I was hoping Rusty would get another dent in its noggin.

Kraken keeps trying to bite Rusty’s treads because it’s the only thing that’ll fit in its mouth and somewhere in this mess Rusty throws a punch and kind of misses in a sense but its spike winds up dipping down into Kraken’s head. You can visibly see the airbag I mentioned earlier – that’s the target – but Rusty hasn’t hit it, instead it’s just sorta dragging Kraken around by its face shield thing while its spike hits nothing. Kraken tries to bite and misses. Rusty swings its spike and misses. Kraken has the potential to end this match in one bite if it can just grab those treads because we all remember it defeating the needlessly intricate Red Devil by doing exactly that a couple seasons ago.

The two bots lock together and Rusty swings and misses again though this time its spike is resting on Kraken’s head. The spike slips past the armor again and falls into that cavity where Kraken’s airbag is and Kraken shoves Rusty into the other Pulverizer its team controls. As the robots collide with the wall Kraken’s face kind of bows out to the left a little bit and as the hammer comes down to dent the backside of Rusty the twisting worsens until the airbag comes loose along with Kraken’s entire fucking face. Chris Rose attributes the damage to Rusty by exclaiming the robot has ripped Kraken’s face off but really this is just because Kraken’s face was held on like shit and this fight was a perfect storm of bad for grappler.

Make no mistake though, Kraken loses its entire goddamned face. It also loses its airbag which comes loose and swings around held on only by its air hose. Don’t ask me how a simple air bladder gives Kraken 60,000 pounds of bite force because I can’t answer that for you. What I can say is Kraken does a nice job weaponizing its loose parts because as it gets away from Rusty it does a great job swinging its airbag around to land a hit with it. Oh what I would give to see Rusty just throw its spike down to spear that bag of danger popcorn. But alas there’s not enough time left in the match so the fight ends and it’s sent to the judges.

I talked a lot of shit about Rusty but when push came to shove Rusty instead decided to grab and yank and pulling Kraken’s face off was such a chad move that it’s not even a split decision; Rusty gets the support of all three judges and actually wins a fight for real.

WINNER: Rusty, Judges’ Decision (3-0)

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COPPERHEAD vs. CHRONOS

Copperhead was having a hell of a season this year being one of the few to go 3-0 in its qualifiers, so what’s it doing in Bounty Hunters? Where’d the team get all that free time? Yeah, about that. Copperhead may have decapitated Gigabyte, scored a two hit KO over P1, and took a fight with Black Dragon to the buzzer but it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows when the main tournament started. With a seeding of number fucking 3 Copperhead was scheduled to fight Mammoth and somehow this stupid robot threw the fight. It lost to Mammoth. The tiniest robot in the competition losing to the biggest swing set of a competitor there is. Copperhead’s on a string of bad luck, here’s hoping this rematch with Chronos doesn’t end the exact same way as their first fight.

So Chronos has been my punching bag this entire season and even into the 2021 season for all the times I’ve stuck up for P1. Copperhead might’ve scored a brutal KO over the race car but Chronos was put out to pasture in less than a minute after P1 was able to get underneath it, lift it up, and beach it against the arena wall. Chronos was then drawn to fight Bloodsport and after literally one hit Chronos’ ring spinner shit the bed and stopped working. This fight was such a snoozefest that Bloodsport spun its own weapon down to just win a pushing battle and avoid further wear and tear on their own weapon system. After two back to back performances that scored a solid F- Chronos wasn’t even given a third Fight Night match; its run for the tournament ended after two fights and two shameful losses. But remember one thing: Chronos has exactly one win to its name and that win was over Copperhead.

Copperhead’s Zach Goff says he’s going for the box rush and that’s exactly the plan that’s executed. Normally this is done to prevent a spinning robot from achieving top speed and given what happened the last time these two robots crossed paths I’d say this is a valid strategy. Except Chronos ducks out to the side and gets away. That’s about all it does because it’s barely fucking spinning. Someone CC Jerry Serafin and let him in on the email chain about needing to turn your weapon on or else it doesn’t do anything. Chronos gets spinning fast enough where you can still make out its weapon teeth and Copperhead puts an end to that bullshit immediately by crashing into the ring spinner and stopping it.

This hit seems to disable Chronos’ weapon? Because it’s not doing anything and Copperhead is able to cruise on over and grind some sparks out on it. After about ten seconds of this Chronos looks like it’s trying to get going again but Copperhead once more uses its outside voice to say “no” and smashes into the ring spinner. The ensuing hit causes Chronos to flip over and land near one of the Pulverizers and the robot is just totally dead. As a ring spinner Chronos has the unique ability to drive while inverted and still use its weapon but it’s barely done either of those things when right ways up so in its current state the robot is toast. Jerry flicks some stuff around on his transmitter as he looks on but I guess time’s up for the clock. I’d say “better luck next season” but Chronos didn’t apply for 2021.

WINNER: Copperhead, KO

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GRABOT vs. GIGABYTE

Calling Grabot a competitor is like saying being good at the basketball game at Dave & Buster’s means you could take on Steph Curry 1-on-1. I don’t think Grabot is intended to be a BattleBot, this thing showed up to promote the team’s company which provides assistive devices to disabled people. I couldn’t tell you what their company was though so I guess they did a real bang up job on that front. Grabot was supposed to have three fights. This thing. It only got two. SubZero flipped it into oblivion and at some point the robot just stopped working. Beta called next game and smashed this robot so hard it caved in the lid and Grabot started smoking. Because of all that damage the team didn’t get their third fight but at least they had enough time to fix Grabot so it could be offered to Gigabyte as a sacrifice.

Earlier I joked about Copperhead having a lot of free time because it went out in round one of the main tournament. Gigabyte actually went out in the Round of 16 after Hydra slam dunked it for three solid minutes. I guess maybe because the Whyachi bounty bracket was last this afforded Gigabyte’s crew the time needed to fix things up? Who knows. Gigabyte started strong this season and by that I mean it completely lost its fucking dome when Copperhead uppercutted it just right. Realizing Gigabyte needed to be treated with kid gloves the “selection committee” gave it Extinguisher as its next fight. We already saw Extinguisher get trashed by Valkyrie last week so I’m sure you can guess how that went. Finally Gigabyte battled Claw Viper and basically destroyed its drive system for a KO. Its one tournament win came from Malice after it wrecked Malice’s weapon and left it spinning in place with a busted drivetrain.

This isn’t even a fight. Grabot is barely able to leave its square. We know what the theoretical fight should look like; Grabot spins around 180 degrees and fights like a plow until Gigabyte slows down and then Grabot spins back around and… I don’t fuckin’ know touches Gigabyte with its grabby hands? The fight doesn’t even make it that far. Gigabyte just idles across the box as it reaches top speed and Grabot is spinning around in place without a fucking care in the world. Gigabyte gets on the correct side of Grabot to line up a shot, calls its hole, and then rips into Grabot’s back right corner. All eleven of the bolts holding Grabot’s rear plow on give way and the chunk of armor is hurled across the Battlebox straight at Lisa Winter’s face hard enough to make a ding in the Lexan right in front of her.

Grabot twitches once and then stops moving. Its stupid hands are still functional but the robot itself is dead and its guts are hanging out of its backside. My only complaint is that if this were the Comedy Central era of BattleBots we’d have seen Gigabyte land a few more blows to really send a fucking message and make Grabot a complete and total loss. What was that about assistive technology for the disabled? Someone get on that stat because I think Grabot’s in need of a new cybernetic asshole.

WINNER: Gigabyte, KO

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PERFECT PHOENIX vs. BIG DILL

Like I said earlier this season when we were still going through the preliminaries Perfect Phoenix might be driven by Tyler Nguyen and assisted by Ray Billings but it’s neither of their builds; Perfect Phoenix lived its first life as “Brutality” and it was commandeered by none other than Paul “Oh Baby A Triple” Ventimiglia. Tyler and Ray merely inherited it. Perfect Phoenix was basically given a bye in its first round when Extinguisher crashed into the wall and took itself out. Its first real test came with Skorpios, a robot who was more than willing to hack it up and knock it out. Perfect Phoenix rounded things out with a match against Atom 94 that wound up being a potato fight because both robots’ weapons gave out. Still this win was enough to put Perfect Phoenix through to the tournament where End Game was completely fine with destroying it.

Big Dill also tangoed with Atom 94 in its first ever BattleBots fight. The combination of Big Dill’s long forks and Atom 94’s long chassis proved to be a unique problem because Atom 94 deepthroated Big Dill’s spears so savagely that the robots couldn’t be separated and the fight went to the judges. Big Dill won. Fortune would not shine on the newbie again though as Lock-Jaw slammed this thing around and splayed its forks apart and Rotator shredded one of Big Dill’s wheels leaving it for dead. It’s an interesting robot, and to comply with BattleBots restrictions on name ownership it competes elsewhere with a yellow paint job as “Banana Runt”, but it’s just not that effective. Perfect Phoenix is using a shitty little rinky dink bar for this fight though so perhaps the pickle man will have the reach advantage.

Long have I lamented the “minibot” in seasons of BattleBots because they’re just annoyances that fail to do a fucking thing and only serve to get in the way of the action. (And in my opinion destroying them should count as damage.) But look at this, five seconds into this fight Big Dill runs a quick drive on Perfect Phoenix and lifts it up just enough for its minibot to get stuck underneath Perfect Phoenix so, well, perfectly that Perfect Phoenix balances atop the little robot with none of its wheels on the floor. This is a KO for Big Dill on a silver platter right here, the first of its kind too! But Big Dill isn’t content with the fastest KO in contemporary BattleBots history so it naturally goes in and starts fucking with Perfect Phoenix and knocks it loose while trying to flip it over. Smooth. Real fucking smooth.

After that amazing power play Perfect Phoenix gets away and actually lands the hit to Big Dill’s backside that Tyler said he wanted; Big Dill only has two wheels way at its back so destroying one of them would cripple its drivetrain. Perfect Phoenix isn’t able to completely destroy the wheel it hits but it does rip a chunk off of Big Dill’s left tire and leaves us all wondering what could’ve been the best moment of instant karma in the history of the fucking sport. Big Dill is slowly backed against the wall as it tries lifting Perfect Phoenix up and manages another half flip that results in its left fork getting bent up because it hit Perfect Phoenix’s weapon bar. Man, you guys remember when Big Dill won this match five seconds in? Because I sure as shit don’t. Big Dill’s almost trying to lose this fight by this point.

It takes a third attempt but Big Dill is able to get underneath the front plow of Perfect Phoenix and hook its remaining straight fork behind the wedge for a proper lift that sends Perfect Phoenix up and over onto its lid. I guess Emmanuel Carrillo was adamant about winning in this fashion but I kind of think he should’ve gone with the minibot KO if only because this miserable lifter would actually have a record to its name. But who cares about making a legacy though, right? It’s all fun and games. Not like there’s a major prize at stake or anything like that. That would be ridiculous.

WINNER: Big Dill, KO

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GIGABYTE vs. BIG DILL

Big Dill just fought but thanks to weird editing it’s going right back in the box against Gigabyte. Gigabyte absolutely eviscerated Grabot in a single shot that sent Grabot’s ass flying off and its internals basically falling out. There isn’t a parallel universe out there where Grabot won that fight. Suck on that Stephen Hawking. Big Dill reenters the arena sporting a more spatula-like lifting arm that tucks into its front plow with the obvious idea being to knock Gigabyte around, slow it down, and then come in for the lift. Big Dill KO’d Perfect Phoenix after repeated attempts to flip it finally paid off. Here’s another spinner for you this time on Expert difficulty.

For the entirety of Bounty Hunters and probably stretching into the main season I keep referencing a move called the “box rush”. It’s when a wedge or a ram bot floors it forward at the start of a match to smash into an opponent with a spinner before that spinner can get up to speed. Here is one finally executed by a robot whose name is a fucking pickle pun. You’d think after that perfect shot Big Dill would capitalize on it and chase Gigabyte down and grab it with its lifter but no instead it appears that non-hit has caused Big Dill’s left wheel to lock up. Maybe the wedge is bent ever so slightly and the wheel is off the ground. Whatever the reason Big Dill came out with big dick energy only for us to find out in the end it has a small peepee.

Big Dill spontaneously starts moving fine again and rebounds Gigabyte off of its plow a couple times. Gigabyte gets some good air from these hits until finally we get one of those big shots that sends both robots flying across the ring. Gigabyte slams into the wall and slows down while Big Dill spins out into a far corner and loses a chunk of its plow that protects its lifting arm’s bracket. The editors drop in a Kenny Florian “geez” for good measure. Gigabyte is again ricocheted into the walls and hits the screws and now Big Dill deploys the lifting arm. Unfortunately Big Dill’s drive system has decided not to cooperate again and Gigabyte is able to get up to top speed again so Big Dill retracts the lifting arm to avoid it getting ripped off.

Gigabyte keeps trying to maneuver around to Big Dill’s sides for the kill shot but it’s hard for it to make it over there because steering a shell spinner at full speed is like controlling a goddamned cruise ship and Big Dill can just spin around in place so its wedge is always facing forward. Gigabyte continues to be repelled however at one point the spinner rides up far enough to clip Big Dill’s lifting arm bracket and breaks the arm. So that’s going to be a grand total of zero offensive attacks from Big Dill’s weapon I guess because that piece of shit is just loosely flapping around atop the robot probably only still held on by its chain.

The fight continues on as it has been with Gigabyte bouncing around off of Big Dill’s wedge and eventually the other sprocket cover on Big Dill gets ripped off. At this point it doesn’t even matter because Big Dill’s lifter is about as useful as a three legged greyhound. Big Dill takes another blow to the face and if you look closely you’ll notice that the welds on the inside of the plow’s right side are coming apart; we’re probably like two big hits away from seeing half of Big Dill’s fucking face get sheared off. Big Dill’s drive problems appear to come back in full force after this hit because its left wheel is spinning against the ground with no purchase so hard that smoke is coming off of the rubber. Meanwhile the right side of drive is working intermittently.

I don’t know if this is all cumulative damage from Gigabyte or a major design flaw by putting the robot’s wheels as far back as fucking possible but the ref says he’s seen enough and starts to count out the pickle bot. Emanuel is doing everything he can from the drivers’ booth but Big Dill is too damaged or worn out to continue. The plow is cracked, the lifting arm is broken, and for all we know the chassis might be twisted or something. It’s time to put this robot down.

WINNER: Gigabyte, KO

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RUSTY vs. COPPERHEAD

I know Rusty has become a meme bot that the community rallies around and hails as something great and I’m the stick in the mud who just doesn’t buy into the bullshit but I’ll give credit where due, Rusty tussled with Kraken and came out ahead. Literally, a-head. Get it? Because it ripped Kraken’s stupid face off? Anyways Rusty was too awkward for Kraken to control so it was able to stab Kraken in the head and with the help of the hazards pull the entire robot’s face and pneumatic airbag loose. Copperhead got its rematch with Chronos and was able to settle the score in about one and a half hits… which is pretty much how many hits the first fight took so good on Copperhead for wrapping that one up quickly so I don’t have to recap it.

Rusty valiantly advances forward with all the confidence of a fucking champion-tier robot only for it to get blasted on its side by Copperhead shedding a few chunks of tread in the process. Rusty topples over sideways but its little tube steel wings let it roll back down when it swings its spike so the bot recovers and reloads. Copperhead seems completely unafraid of Rusty and with good reason too, Copperhead’s armor is literally like half an inch thick of solid fucking steel so that spike ain’t going anywhere. Rusty still swings it down though and the spike reaches behind Copperhead’s drum and jams it up. Rusty legitimately gives Robert Cowan at the controls of Copperhead an “oh shit” moment where he thinks there’s a possibility this fucking junk bot sank his battleship.

Copperhead turns out to be good though so the fight is still on. Rusty’s not really moving all that well in the red square and Copperhead is fucking pissed about that cheap shot. You can hear the drum humming as the snake bot comes in to blast Rusty’s polycarbonate armor apart. Rusty regroups and shunts Copperhead with its armored up front end and successfully deflects a blow. Copperhead keeps Rusty in the red square and because of the robot’s problems with movement it can’t really get away from danger. Copperhead swings wide and catches Rusty from the side again and lands a shot that blows back the polycarbonate panel and flips Rusty over into the corner of the Battlebox. Rusty fires its bent up spike helplessly but is intent on flipping back over.

Like a miracle of mashing the A button trying to get up in a fight with Mike Tyson in Punch-Out Rusty is able to slowly roll back onto its treads. It’s a pyrrhic victory however because Rusty’s right tread was snapped by Copperhead in the exchange but it’s still an act of straight up defiance for the robot to stand back up after being knocked down so hard. The crowd collectively loses their shit even though Rusty can’t move. The ref counts down Rusty but really there were two different winners here; the winner of the fight and the winner of our hearts.

WINNER: Copperhead, KO

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GIGABYTE vs. COPPERHEAD

This bounty bracket is just like a series of past ghosts for Copperhead. It just got done wrapping up a fight with Chronos and now it’s here redoing its match with Gigabyte. Will we see Gigabyte’s shell get popped off a second time? We’re about to find out. Ironically if Copperhead wins this match Son of Whyachi will be waiting for it and that’s another fucking rematch for the team. Gigabyte has had a relatively seamless road to this match. Its fight with Grabot was free much in the same way Copperhead’s fight with Rusty was free except Copperhead can’t claim a one hit knock out like Gigabyte can. Big Dill definitely gave Gigabyte some serious issues being ping-ponged into the wall a few times but the spinner held up and stood its ground to win via KO a second time.

Copperhead goes for the box rush to catch Gigabyte’s lip before the shell can get up to speed but Gigabyte is ready for this and performs a 360 spin around its opponent. Now that’s smooth. What’s unsmooth is Copperhead shrugging and just slamming into Gigabyte anyways chucking the spinner at the drivers’ booth and very nearly causing Gigabyte’s self righting mast to break the goddamned BattleBots sign. That was about as smooth as silk with dried semen on it. Before Copperhead can capitalize on the prone Gigabyte the spinner uses that mast to flip itself over and gets away back to the center of the arena to start spinning back up to speed one more time. As Gigabyte spins it’s throwing sparks up from the floor so something’s bent or warped or whatever. We might be on the verge of a Chernobyl meltdown here.

Gigabyte is still going but Copperhead is also still in the game with a fully charged up weapon. It slams into Gigabyte again and pops the robot several feet into the air straight at the fucking screws. Gigabyte rebounds hard off of the control box into the corner but keeps on spinning. Not even the Ramrods can stop Gigabyte because one of the ones in front of the red square pops up and Gigabyte reduces its tip to sparks in a nanosecond. Copperhead chases Gigabyte down and nails it a third time sending Gigabyte at the glass and causing Chris Rose to flub a line that the sound crew decided not to redub in post. Here’s the crazy thing though, Gigabyte is still spinning. In seasons gone by this would’ve been enough to sink the spinner and reduce it to a shitty hockey puck push bot but Gigabyte is in this fight until the bitter end, win or lose.

Copperhead runs into Gigabyte a couple of times but nothing too hard so all we see are some explosions of sparks as the spinning drum meets the blades on the outside of Gigabyte’s shell. Copperhead gets spun around by the hits and that’s when Gigabyte strikes; it lunges forward and hits Copperhead’s left wheel. This hit visibly limits Copperhead’s mobility and after the slam fest this fight has been so far John Mladenik is holding back and seeing if he can draw a count out from the officials. Matt Maxham is at his side as Gigabyte’s weapon operator though and he’s telling John to be aggressive and to go in there for the hits. Fuck yeah, man! Get in there! Tear shit up! Rip a whole fucking wheel off! We want blood god damn it!

Copperhead is spinning around in place and pulls up on one wheel but we know from past fights the robot can coast around on one dud wheel by using its gyro forces. Matt is right, this isn’t enough. This is the part where the Mortal Kombat voice comes in and says “FINISH HIM”. Gigabyte comes in and lands a few glancing blows to Copperhead’s face focused on the right side of the robot and after this exchange the cameras cut to Zach Goff who’s shaking his head because Copperhead has finally stopped moving. It wasn’t an explosive end to the fight but it’s an ending none the less. Gigabyte has managed to settle the score with Copperhead from earlier in the season and advances on to face Son of Whyachi in the bounty bracket finale.

WINNER: Gigabyte, KO

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BOUNTY FIGHT
SON OF WHYACHI vs. GIGABYTE

Here it is, the final bounty battle. Son of Whyachi was the champion way back in 2002 when it famously wrecked Biohazard in a close back and forth battle for the ages. Normally piloted by Luke Ewert for this fight the keys have been handed over to Jake Ewert because Luke couldn’t make it. Son of Whyachi is a mainstay of BattleBots, a nightmare of spinning hammers whose triangular configuration is an iconic emblem of the sport. While Jake was working on it during a pit segment I noticed he was wearing a Bad Dragon face mask which makes him the ultimate fucking jabroni. Don’t think I wouldn’t notice that. You’ll get your ass kicked coming into my neighborhood wearing some stupid shit like that. Get a real man’s facemask. Catch me outside.

Anyways, as we often see in a battle between two massive spinners there is no “box rush” strategy employed because neither robot is built to do that. You could argue Son of Whyachi could theoretically do a box rush because it has a wedge but the time spent box rushing would be better allocated to getting those massive fucking hammers up to speed. John Mladenik was correct when he said he was spinning a massive wedge around and that it would bump Son of Whyachi up into the air. What I’m sure he wasn’t expecting was for Son of Whyachi to hop up and then slap the directional indicator and self righting pole right off of his fucking robot. That was the one thing Gigabyte had over Son of Whyachi, the ability to self right if it got flipped over somehow. Now the playing field has been leveled and both robots rev right back up for another go.

Son of Whyachi bounces off of Gigabyte again and socks the screws on its way down sending the former champ reeling into the far corner. Gigabyte is still rocking and rolling but for some reason doesn’t chase down Son of Whyachi as the former champ tries to get back up to speed. Whether intentional or not Son of Whyachi is back at its deadly kinetic event fucking horizon and the two robots meet again though this time Gigabyte catches Son of Whyachi’s chassis in the fray and turns the entire spinner upside down. This is it. This fight is now over. Son of Whyachi can’t do shit from this position except helplessly spin its body around. John is holding off on putting the metaphorical bullet in Son of Whyachi’s head but Matt Maxham is once again screaming at John to “DO IT” so Gigabyte comes in and starts shaving some titanium sparks off of Son of Whyachi’s spinning chassis.

Son of Whyachi is shunted into the corner near the entrance of the arena and now it’s Jake Ewert shouting through the COVID glass at John to keep hitting the robot so John complies and steers Gigabyte into its opponent again and blasts it back out near the center of the box. You can hear the ref give his “I’m not seeing any movement” warning and he tries to start a count down but Gigabyte goes right back in and continues to kick Son of Whyachi while it’s down much to the glee of Jake, probably because it’s not his robot. If the ref is still counting Son of Whyachi out I can’t fucking hear it over the noise of metal clanging and people shouting from every goddamned direction. Eventually Son of Whyachi comes to rest and I hear the ref continue from seven so I guess he stopped the count while Gigabyte slammed its opponent around for good measure.

The former champ has been taken down. I’ve gotta say a win via flipping the entire damn robot over was a surprise but this was just like Gigabyte’s 2021 match with Captain Shrederator; there was going to be a lot of hopping and skipping around until someone gave out. I just wasn’t expecting it to be Son of Whyachi by way of landing on its head. Gigabyte dethrones the bounty boss and becomes the fourth robot to claim a chunk of the prize purse and one of those sweet red and blue “BOUNTY HUNTER” medals.

You shouldn’t have worn that stupid mask, Jake.

WINNER: Gigabyte, KO

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Rotator, Skorpios, Lock-Jaw, and now Gigabyte. All four of these robots challenged the bounty hunter brackets and all four of them earned a chunk of the $25,000 prize purse. If it’s split four ways between them that’s $6,250 per team… uh, before taxes. Tombstone and Witch Doctor also defended their titles as bounties however and I don’t know if that means Ray and Andrea are entitled to a share of the cash as well. If so that means everyone gets $4,166. Just enough to maybe patch up a couple of burned out motors and buy some new batteries! That’s life changing money I’m sure.

Bounty Hunters was a fun experiment from BattleBots and I hope they do more things like this. It is my dream to see creative post-season content like this after the chaos and carnage of the main tournament wraps up. I hope someday the producers go full on Robot Wars: Extreme Warriors with this. I want to see tag team matches, rumbles, and even something like the “Annihilator” where you start with a six robot rumble and each round the weakest robot gets eliminated until you have a showdown with the final two bots standing. There are so many things BattleBots can do and this was just a taste of it. They came close to greatness when we had the “USA vs. The World” episode a couple seasons ago; now they just need to seize that creativity and run with it!

That’s a wrap on season ten of BattleBots, fully. Main tournament and Bounty Hunters. It was bothering me that I was missing this miniseries from the website but now it’s been laid to rest and I can sleep at night. Alternatively I can continue not sleeping at night because this particular problem will just be replaced with another one in my broken mind. For those of you wondering what’s next for BattleBots Update I’m not sure. I left BattleBots season one unfinished due to Hurricane Harvey (yeah that long ago) so maybe I’ll double back and finish that. There’s also Clash of Bots, Robotica, the American Robot Wars, and the post-season content from 2021’s season of BattleBots too. I’ll figure something out.

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See you in the next article!

– Draco