BattleBots: S12 E11

Well that was a fun two week break. Did you survive the time away from BattleBots? Did you enjoy how the season suspended on an episode that opened up the Riptide hate floodgates and then let it fester for nearly three weeks? More importantly did you like the interim article I posted about the other shows on Discovery+ besides BattleBots? That article took a long time to write and I paid for the Discovery+ subscription using the money this website makes from Patreon so in a sense you all are responsible for that disaster. Great job! No really though, if you haven’t read the article please do. It took a lot of effort getting that posted during the season break and I think you’ll like it (especially if you liked the similar article I wrote about shows on ABC back in 2016).

This week’s episode has the potential for some big blows as some of the heaviest hitters in the field take to the arena. Black Dragon returns to fight Beta in a match that’ll put the power of Beta’s hammer to the test. Cobalt is also back I guess to claim a free win from Overhaul because I don’t see that fight going any differently. The Tombstone-esque Triton matches up with Glitch who is struggling to get its first win of the season. Captain Shrederator has also somehow been put back together from its run-in with Riptide and it’ll be fighting Jackpot. Honestly just seeing the Captain back in one piece will be a win in and of itself. Finally in the main event Bloodsport steps up to the big leagues to face Rotator.

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BLACK DRAGON vs. BETA

Out of these two robots it’s Black Dragon who has the lesser current season record, believe it or not. Black Dragon’s season opened with a quick win over Monsoon when after a piece of debris was sucked into Monsoon’s weapon causing it to stall Black Dragon was able to capitalize and go on the attack. Monsoon got tipped onto its side and with no active weapon it was immobilized. Then Black Dragon met the crushing machine Quantum and this is where things took a turn for the worst. Quantum was able to bite down onto the snack-sized dragon and just slam it around. The robots actually became inseparable and the fight was called early. Since Quantum was in control of the match it was ruled the winner bringing Black Dragon to 1-1. But it’s never been knocked out, keep that in mind. I don’t think Beta has the firepower to KO Black Dragon but Riptide sure as shit does. I feel like all this talk about “never knocked out” is just telegraphing the inevitable fourth fight to Riptide where chances are Black Dragon will lose and Ethan Kurtz will say “fuck” on camera again.

It’s very easy to forget this but Beta is somewhat modular. The Beta that we always see is the one with the steep wedge armor on all sides but Beta also has this “ugly armor” that it uses against vertical spinners. Beta tried this shit with Lock-Jaw a couple seasons ago and it bit Beta on the ass so I don’t know why John Reid has brought it back because his robot is 2-0 right now and this might just fuck it up. Beta stumbled out of the gate this season against Kraken but that was okay because Kraken fucking blew chunks too. Beta landed the bigger hits and came out with a win. Thankfully it had its shit in order for its second fight against Shatter. In a battle of the hammers Beta came out on top after pancaking Shatter’s lid and warping the robot’s armor panels. Beta is having a moderately good season so far and at 2-0 I feel like it’ll qualify for the Round of 32 no matter what but winning these last two qualifiers is still important for a high seed. Also while we’re here shoutouts to the vintage Killerhurtz toy that Beta’s teammate tries to push the ready button with.

Beta takes the initiative and cruises out of its starting square to face Black Dragon who hangs back to spin up its drum. Black Dragon darts away at the last second denying Beta its early shot. I should point out that Beta’s gone with its thinner “axe hammer” thing presumably because it’s not able to use the bigger hammer head and the ugly armor at the same time due to weight restrictions. This is the same axe blade that Kraken chewed up and bent out of shape so all it’s going to take is Beta dropping that thing too close to Black Dragon’s spinner and it’s going to wind up looking like a duck’s cock again. Black Dragon shaves a few sparks off of Beta as the robots tango and at first glance it looks like that curved armor is actually working as intended for Beta. Then Black Dragon pops Beta on its front corner and flips the whole fucking thing over so I guess the more things change the more things stay the same.

Beta self rights and gets back in the fight and as its armored shell deflects another blow from Black Dragon you can see a bunch of little wheel-like things fall off of Beta. I think these are the feet that sit behind the armor to shock mount it onto the chassis? They’re little rubber dots so the armor can move around without deforming or warping the robot’s inner frame. Beta stays on Black Dragon and as the dragon dances around trying to land another good hit Beta’s armor is doing its job and denying the Brazilians the big hit. Black Dragon turns sharply and pulls up on one side and Beta gets underneath the robot though nothing major comes from this move. Beta goes for a swing on Black Dragon and its hammer comes down with so little force that I feel like my fat ass swinging a sledgehammer would’ve hit harder. Beta’s hammer doesn’t retract and stays fired. The robot looks like it’s not moving around too well all of a sudden. Black Dragon hits Beta on its vulnerable ass end and visibly bends it out of shape before landing a follow-up shot that rolls Beta onto its lid again.

We’ve seen Beta use its hammer to right itself once already but something’s wrong with the hammer because now it’s decided to go back to being a piece of shit and not retract. Black Dragon scoots across the arena and spins around for a line drive at Beta but John throws in the towel and says he’s done. Despite the Brazilian team being loud and excitable they hear John and don’t come in for the kill shot. There are other teams out there who could learn from this exchange. Black Dragon’s celebrated “never been KO’d” streak continues to 24 fights and Beta’s record falls to 2-1. It could still achieve a 3-1 finish but no matter what I think Beta’s made it into the main tournament and now with a 2-1 record of its own so has Black Dragon. Everybody wins, hooray!

WINNER: Black Dragon, KO

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COBALT vs. OVERHAUL

Up next is a pair of 1-1 robots each with different stories to tell. Introduced first is Dave Moulds and John Mladenik’s Cobalt, one of the deadliest robots to ever enter the Battlebox. Last season this thing dismantled Ghost Raptor with extreme prejudice and this season it’s firing on all cylinders again waiting for the opportunity to show off again. Deathroll was Cobalt’s first opponent and thanks to Deathroll having fuck all in the way of ground game Cobalt was able to effortlessly slide underneath it and nail it hard. Deathroll wound up losing by KO. Cobalt’s second fight was against Minotaur and let me tell you something this fight was fucking championship material. These two machines traded blows back and forth with parts coming off all over the place and one could argue that Cobalt had the upper hand all until Minotaur tipped it backwards and knocked it out in the waning seconds of the match. It’s a loss but it might as well read as a win to the judges when it comes time for tournament seeds (because let’s be real here we all know Cobalt is going to make it in).

For some reason Cobalt’s opponent is Overhaul. Deathroll was a force to be reckoned with back in 2019 and Mintotaur is, well, fucking Minotaur but Overhaul seems like low-hanging fruit. Charles Guan’s little blue engine that could is back at BattleBots and this year it’s managed to score a win for once; usually this hunk of garbage goes winless and Charles spends the off season posting about vans on Facebook. Overhaul’s first opponent was Starchild and at first it seemed like a mismatch because how the fuck is Overhaul going to do literally anything to such a giant machine? As it turns out Overhaul could catch Starchild with its grappling jaw pointed upward. That led to a win because Starchild sucks. Overhaul then fought Claw Viper and Claw Viper is definitely on something this year because it ran circles around Overhaul and dominated it for nearly the entire fight. Overhaul lost by decision but at least it wasn’t a brutal knock out. No, that’s probably been reserved for this fight.

Overhaul ducks out toward the drivers’ booth prompting Cobalt to follow. Cobalt turns to face Overhaul but as it does so it pulls up on its right side and coasts along the floor thanks to inertia. Cobalt’s edge sticks atop part of the arena railing. This fight is literally already over. It’s done. Overhaul can just not touch Cobalt and win this fight but much like Ripperoni being tempted by End Game jamming its dick down into the Killsaws Overhaul decides to engage and doesn’t even get a good fucking lift to show for it because almost immediately upon landing back on its wheels Cobalt powers forward and slices up Overhaul throwing it into the air. Kenny Florian suggests that Overhaul might want to use the force of Cobalt’s weapon against it. Instead Overhaul points its right front corner at Cobalt and gets its armor panel blown off resulting in a shower of bolts and rubber shock mounts.

Overhaul is sporting extended forks for this battle and it looks like they are more trouble than they are worth because they’re preventing Overhaul from fine tuning its orientation when it’s close to Cobalt; the forks are just sticking into Cobalt’s face and not letting Overhaul turn to face it straight on. Overhaul gets pushed back into the same area in front of the drivers’ booth where it got whammied a second ago and Cobalt lets loose another blow that throws Overhaul onto its lid and shreds its back left tires and also rips off the other front armor panel. Charles says this is “suboptimal” like this is a fucking video game speedrun or something. Overhaul doubled up on its back wheels specifically for this reason so I guess that’s one thing going its way this fight because the rest of it sure as hell isn’t. Overhaul gets knocked over again and as it rights itself I can see a motor of some sort just sorta hanging out of one of the holes in its grappling jaw. Not sure what that goes to but in my professional opinion if it’s just hanging loose outside of the robot it’s probably broken.

Cobalt starts tripping up around the arena hitting seams and stuff. It’s driving erratically enough that the hosts start wondering if there’s something wrong with the robot. I don’t think there’s something wrong with Cobalt but I do think it’s having problems navigating the arena now that it’s littered with sheared bolts and rubber feet that are exactly the right size to get stuck underneath it as it drives around. Overhaul is hanging in there but its elongated forks haven’t proven to be functional at all. It again turns rapidly to face Cobalt and its forks catch Cobalt’s front corner preventing it from completely facing Cobalt dead on. Cobalt takes advantage of the snag by shoving Overhaul into the wall which feeds its spinning disc right into Overhaul’s front left wheel shearing the goddamned axle and throwing the robot upside down. We’ve seen Overhaul right itself but for whatever reason it’s dead in the water this time. Cobalt readies itself for an ass attack in case Overhaul rolls back over but the ref starts her countdown and Overhaul is counted out.

Cobalt is looking to be in top form to qualify for the main tournament. Overhaul looks like it’s ready to qualify for being shipped back home.

WINNER: Cobalt, KO

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SWITCHBACK vs. OMINOUS

Okay, Switchback and Ominous are up next so if you have to take a piss or something now’s the time to do it. I’ll be here writing about this soon-to-be disaster of a fight however because I’m committed to going down with the ship. Switchback was redesigned coming into this season but so far that new look isn’t really paying off the way Greg Needel thought it would. Switchback won a fight against Banshee but if I wanted to be serious about this I’d have thrown that entire statement under air quotes because that wasn’t a fight and Switchback only won because as per the rules someone has to win each fight even if it sucks ass. Switchback’s battle with Deathroll was a little more clear cut because Switchback lost on account of Deathroll socking it in the face and splaying it open against the arena side walls. Hard to argue on the outcome there. Switchback is 1-1 but it might as well be 0-2 as far as I’m concerned.

And speaking of robots that might as well be 0-2 here’s fucking Ominous. A little known fact about this fight is that they cut out Faruq’s intros because when it came time to introduce Ominous he literally just said “we sell snacks at the concession stand and the bathrooms are clean anyways here’s Ominous I guess fuck you”. This robot is hot garbage. Ominous pretty convincingly lost its first round fight to Claw Viper when it was bullied around and eventually stood up on its end to where its srimech wouldn’t work. Ominous “won” its next battle against Shreddit Bro and honestly the only way I can discuss that travesty is to just remind you all that in the middle of the fight Chris and Kenny had nothing left to say so the editors spliced in a preview of the upcoming main event fight in a segment that lasted 40 fucking seconds. There was one hit in that entire fight followed by Shreddit Bro being a piece of shit and Ominous just darting around in an effort to appear strategic to the judges because its weapon was busted.

Both robots sort of amble out of their starting squares unsure of how to approach each other. Both are also spinning up their weapons. Switchback’s is spinning slow enough that you can still fucking see its shape and Ominous’ discs look like they take three attempts to get going. Super. The robots lock heads in the middle of the arena and nobody wins the ground clearance wars so no shots are landed. Switchback pivots around and retreats to try and get a better attack angle and Ominous follows. Suddenly I hear a fucking death hum so I guess Minotaur is in the test box outside or something. Switchback turns to face Ominous and watch very closely because you’ll see this robot fuck up its entire shot at this battle. Switchback’s weapon arm pivots up literally like a centimeter. This surrenders the ground game to Ominous who lands a hit that blows Switchback into the air and bends its front plow attachment into its weapon stopping it cold. Looking great, Switchback!

Switchback stumbles around the arena doing fuck all because it has no recourse for this attack. Ominous strikes again and lands another blow that rips the entire plow off of Switchback and also flips itself over in the process. Switchback’s drum gets spinning back up to rotisserie chicken speeds and taps Ominous once. Ominous can flip itself back over but apparently its srimech is DOA because the robot is just sitting there upside-down spinning its omniwheels. One of Ominous’ team members says a no-no word in Dutch and the editors bleep it out anyways because I guess the FCC cares about shit like that. Ominous ostensibly stood to win this fight on another matter of “it landed one hit and both weapons died but at least Ominous was still mobile” but instead it’s dead, and I don’t fucking care.

WINNER: Switchback, KO

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TRITON vs. GLITCH

Welcome back. Did you have a nice piss? You didn’t miss much. I’d tell you who won the last fight but I didn’t commit it to memory because I have better things to remember such as “things that are green”. Say what you want about the robots from the previous match but at least they (debatably) had a win. These next two robots have no wins between them. None. Triton is a new robot from Bradley Hanstad and it’s meant to hit like Tombstone. It even kind of looks like Tombstone, too. Triton’s first fight was with Lucky and the robot was able to partially disable Lucky’s flipping arm by bending Lucky’s armor against it but with what little travel remained in its arm Lucky was able to tip Triton onto its side for a KO. Copperhead was next in line and Triton’s lack of grip on the floor proved to be its downfall because after a few glancing shots the robot swung wide, pointed its defenseless ass directly at Copperhead, and paid dearly for it. Triton’s ass was ripped to shreds like the sub at a gangbang and somehow it’s been put back together.

Glitch was Rookie of the Year last year after winning seven fights. There’s a forfeit in there somewhere but I guess we don’t take those into consideration at BattleBots anymore so “seven wins in a row” it is. Many thought Glitch just had a lucky rookie year and those statements were proven to likely be true because this year Glitch has just absolutely flat out sucked. No big hits, no kill shots, no “hitting Rotator so hard that its batteries come out and its motor blows up” hits. Nothing. Absolutely fucking nothing. Glitch’s first opponent was Riptide in a match to see who was the best rookie of last season and the answer was Riptide because Glitch got flipped over in a single hit and was out of the battle literally like six seconds in. There was probably nothing to repair on Glitch after that fight so it was brought back out to fight Lock-Jaw, who went winless last season, and the robot managed to fucking lose again. It threw a hella punch at Lock-Jaw and the resulting kickback flipped Glitch over meaning at some point before next year Kyle Miller needs to incorporate a fucking self righter into his robot.

For a weapon that weighs 80 goddamned pounds Triton’s blade sure does spin up pretty fast. Glitch’s drum weighs 50 pounds and it too gets going within the first few seconds of the fight. The robots meet head-to-head and Glitch looks as though it’s able to hook its spinner underneath Triton’s blade and cause the mighty “Tomb-clone” to spin out and drift across the floor. Triton spins back up but its blade isn’t looking too strong because as it cleaves into Glitch’s side it just sorta hits with a thud and stops. Still, this impact is enough to dislodge and set off Glitch’s batteries which immediately go up in smoke. Triton stays in close but Bradley’s girlfriend tells him to back off and let Glitch take its vape break. Eventually Glitch stops smoking and when the arena is clear again Glitch has about half of its drive working and its weapon somehow roaring at full speed. Triton goes in for another attack and catches possibly the worst angle it could’ve gotten because the robot gets blasted into the air and lands hard enough to definitely break something.

Amazingly Triton is still fully mobile after that crash but if you looked closely you probably saw something hanging down from the robot’s underside as it landed. That was one of the belts to Triton’s weapon which has come loose and gummed up the robot’s pulley system meaning Triton’s weapon is out of commission. Triton has no “Plan B”; the robot’s only battle strategy is “spin the bar and hit the other guy”. That’s literally it. Without a weapon Triton is fucked and the situation gets even worse because Glitch’s drum is still going. The robot is fucking smoking again, but the drum still works. Triton bides its time and waits for Glitch to swing around and sticks its dead blade in Glitch’s anal cavity in an effort to try and push it around. Triton is able to successfully get Glitch pushed up against the drivers’ booth with its weapon facing the wall and what comes next has to be accidental genius.

Triton’s blade is cockeyed and the long end is pointing off in one direction. Triton bumps into Glitch’s back end again and inadvertently feeds the end of its blade into the back side of Glitch’s drum. This basically reenacts the scene from Indiana Jones where Jones sticks that metal pole into the spokes of the motorcycle and causes the whole thing to fucking blow up and flip over. That’s exactly what happens to Glitch. For the third goddamned time this season Glitch is flipped over and if the previous two fights are anything to go by we know the robot is basically fucked when this happens. Kyle, invest in a self righter. You clearly need one.

WINNER: Triton, KO

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GIGABYTE vs. STARCHILD

Up next: More 0-2 robots!! Gigabyte is a hellacious shell spinner that has rocked many a robot over the past few years but this season team captain John Mladenik has departed to focus on Cobalt leaving two rookie co-captains in his place as well as a new driver. Operating a shell spinner isn’t as easy as “spin the shell and go” there’s a lot of maneuvering you need to do in order to get your weapon spinning and keep it spinning. So far we’ve seen a lot of driving mistakes from Gigabyte. Free Shipping stomped out the spinner after a powerful ram sent Gigabyte reeling into the wall where it promptly ate its own directional/self-righting mast. A simple flip was all it took to remove Gigabyte from the battle. Against Bloodsport the robot was able to land an incredible blow that sent both robots flying in opposite directions, however as powerful spinners are wont to do this mega hit sent a massive shock through Gigabyte that killed a speed controller and shed a drive belt meaning it died. I’d say Gigabyte arguably stands to win this fight though because this time its shell has some wings specifically meant to slice up robots like Huge and Starchild. It just needs to get spinning and stay spinning.

Starchild comes to us from the mind of Brandon Zalinsky who was willing to hang up the transmitter for his former robot P1 to bring this monstrosity to BattleBots. In the smaller weight classes Starchild is a proven design but bringing that robot up to the scale of a heavyweight has come with some serious challenges that I’m not so certain Brandon was prepared to handle. For one the robot doesn’t hit. Like at all. Yes I saw the damage photos from its fight with Mammoth but those weren’t significant gashes like we’ve seen other robots carve into the giant robot. Starchild managed to lose to Overhaul in round one which meant this robot was cursed to never win a fight absolutely ever in is miserable career. Mammoth came in round two and again Starchild just couldn’t cut it and wound up entangling itself in Mammoth’s frame and just the whole fight was a nightmare. Starchild didn’t win, and Brandon seems to have no tricks up his sleeve for this fight either. His only hope is to bring down Starchild’s spinning disc onto Gigabyte’s mast and break it off.

Gigabyte gets up to speed while Starchild revs up its disc and starts looking for an opening. This will come down to timing for Starchild; it will need to drop its weapon the exact moment Gigabyte comes in close for an attack, like the glancing shot it just landed that ripped a snag in Starchild’s wheel. Gigabyte comes in for a second attack and dashes underneath Starchild slicing up its wheels as it goes. Gigabyte hits the throttle a little too hard though and slams into the wall which damages one of the wings on its shell. As the spinner spins back up listen for the ricochet as one side of the weapon comes loose causing the whole robot to start violently rattling around. This is a win on a silver platter if Gigabyte fucks this up I swear to god I’m done with this. Even with only one wing Gigabyte is still extremely dangerous to Starchild and it’s ripping shreds of Tegris off of the alien robot with every pass. Starchild rolls into the short corner of the arena for some reason wherein we see its disc is totally dead. Starchild is now a very expensive pinata for Gigabyte to dismantle.

Gigabyte hits Starchild again and this time rips a whole chunk of one of its wheels off. Chris Rose says Starchild looks like it drove over tire spikes. Yeah dude it certainly looks fucked up that’s for damn sure. Gigabyte drifts in for another shot and as it follows through straight into the wall you can see it’s missing a wing when the shell stops momentarily. You can also see that the other wing is bent upward now. Chris reminds us that Gigabyte must stay in “attack mode” and that it can’t sandbag. I think the team knows, they’re going after Starchild. Chill out. The problem is Starchild is running around on one and a half wheels and keeps flopping all over the goddamned place. Gigabyte dutifully continues to rip and tear pieces of Starchild’s wheels off and manages to land a hit to the back end of Starchild bending its UHMW strut outward. Somewhere in this mess Gigabyte’s other wing flies off meaning the shell is now balanced again but its effective damage output has been drastically reduced. It’s now hitting with the blades along the bottom of the shell and there’s not much on Starchild to hit down there except for crumpled Tegris.

Chris Rose begins to lament Starchild saying it was new and exciting at the start of the season but is perhaps “too complex for its own good”. No, it’s just a shitty robot. There’s nothing complex about Starchild it’s just a worse version of Huge. It’s a spinning disc on a stick. Hell, fucking Rusty is more complex than Starchild. As Starchild’s wheels deteriorate further I’m just impressed the robot can still actually drive. The ten second counter appears to close out this match and as the fight goes to the judges I think it’s a safe bet that Starchild’s losing streak will continue.

WINNER: Gigabyte, Judges’ Decision (3-0)

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CAPTAIN SHREDERATOR vs. JACKPOT

Whereas everyone else in this episode is having their third fights this next match will be the last time we see either of these robots until the tournament starts assuming they make it in. This is the fourth fight for both teams. Captain Shrederator is in the red square and man is this thing “having a season” this year. It lost to Quantum when its upper UHMW plastic was ineffective at stopping Quantum’s hydraulic crushing jaw. Quantum bit right in, hit the electronics, and wiped out Captain Shrederator. The robot rebounded slightly for what Kenny Florian would call a “soft win” over Hijinx but let’s be honest we’re here to see the fallout from Captain Shrederator’s most recent fight against Riptide where the robot was absolutely destroyed when Riptide caused thousands of dollars’ worth of unnecessary damage when Captain Shrederator was already incapacitated. Brian Nave and his team were able to cobble together a working Shrederator from spare parts but this isn’t ideal. He says karma will come for Riptide. Kenny plays devil’s advocate and says “Brian knew what he was signing up for, if you can’t take the heat get out of the kitchen.” Well said Florian, there’s a boatload of “wearing sunglasses in my car and about to tell you how it is” morons on Facebook who will eat that dumb shit right up.

Jackpot is known for winning all of its qualifiers. This season that changed. Jackpot debuted an updated design this year and so far it’s been a little rocky to say the least. The robot lost to Skorpios when Skorpios effectively used Jackpot’s weapon energy against it to flip it over and expose its underside to attack. Skorpios dropped its hammer saw for a low blow and that sealed the battle for Jackpot. Jackpot then had a rematch with Rotator and although the fight was impressive with a lot of sparks and damage the majority of said sparks and damage came from Jackpot and the robot wound up crippled and sitting atop the Killsaws where it was knocked out. Jackpot wouldn’t catch a break until its run-in with Ribbot where it was able to slice off both of Ribbot’s wheels on one side and ultimately flip the frog bot over. Against all odds that stupid frog survived until the buzzer but the judges saw it fit to state Jackpot as the winner. Both of these robots have been absolutely rocked in their roads to their final qualifier and only one of them can make it to 2-2 and potentially qualify for the main tournament.

Captain Shrederator stays in its square to spin up to speed and as it tries to dodge the incoming Jackpot it curves hard to the right, spins itself out, and careens into the corner. Jackpot cruises on over and slices off one of the smaller angled teeth on Captain Shrederator’s shell. No matter what happens in this fight everyone is going to be looking at this through the lens of “Captain Shrederator was literally rebuilt overnight to make it to this match so the fact that it’s even remotely working is impressive – even if the robot sucks as usual”. Captain Shrederator gets away and spins up but watch the directional lights under the shell and you’ll see the robot lose control and spin out into the same fucking corner again. Jackpot is just getting free pot shots while this is going on until the robot backs away for some reason giving Captain Shrederator some space to spin back up. Jackpot comes in for another hit and lands an impressive blow that puts Shrederator into the corner. Guess which one.

Brian Nave tells Captain Shrederator’s driver to get to the center of the arena where it can spin up and hold its ground but all that winds up happening is Captain Shrederator gets bumped into the red square and then falls back into the same goddamned corner for the fourth time this fight. Kenny says something may have damaged Captain Shrederator’s “directional system”. Kenny, that’s not a thing! Captain Shrederator eventually gets pushed into a different corner for a nice change of pace and Jackpot is right there claiming all the free hits and points, though its spinning disc looks noticeably underpowered. What, did the team borrow the motors from Switchback or something? Jackpot takes its time ricocheting Captain Shrederator into all kinds of places in the arena before the fight draws back to where it started. That corner.

Captain Shrederator eventually gets up to a reasonable speed and Jackpot cruises over to land a shot. The resulting blow rips a chunk off of Captain Shrederator’s shell along with one of its big teeth still attached to it. Whatever that shell is made out of fucking sucks, stop using it. You don’t see Gigabyte having this problem. Kenny says this hit scored Captain Shrederator some damage points because he’s completely forgotten both the rules and whatever else he knew about robot combat. We’re about ten seconds away from him just saying “jam up” all the time again. Jackpot’s weapon has basically spun down by this point because this whole fight it’s been on a downward trend in power. The match ends and the fight is called for Jackpot which means at 2-2 there’s an argument to be had for its inclusion in the Round of 32. That said Jeff Waters needs to figure out what the hell is wrong with his robot’s weapon because once the main tournament is on that’s it there’s no second chances.

Chris Rose says this could be the last we see of Captain Shrederator though that’s not exactly true as team member Nick Nave has stated that the robot is being completely redesigned for the next season. Good. Maybe this time it’ll get a shell that isn’t made from a fucking Kinder egg.

WINNER: Jackpot, Judges’ Decision (3-0)

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MAIN EVENT
BLOODSPORT vs. ROTATOR

And now as we round out this episode with the main event it’s time to go back to round three action between bots who are 1-1. A loss here doesn’t mean you’re out of the running but it definitely means you need to win fight #4 to have a pissing chance at staying in. Bloodsport is the first of the horizontal spinners introduced in this fight and its 72 pound “S” bar looks nasty. The robot had an immediate loss at the start of the season when Copperhead sank it in a single shot but Bloodsport was able to turn its favors around and come back with a great battle with Gigabyte where it landed – and survived – an arena shattering hit that left Gigabyte dazed and badly damaged. Rotator has armored up for this fight so we’ll see if that blade on Bloodsport can find the weak spot. As long as Bloodsport doesn’t hit seams in the floor and pop a massive fucking wheelie like it did during the “robots activate” twitch test it should be good to go.

Victor Soto and Rotator have had a difficult season so far. Rewind back to its first fight against Hydra where the battle had to be delayed until Victor could sort out some last minute radio problems that flared up. The fight eventually happened and Rotator lost by way of getting flipped against the arena rails and left to dry. Then Rotator had a rematch with an improved Jackpot, a fight where Victor had to run his weapon power at just 50% to abate those same radio problems. (That’s lower than Switchback’s power!) Rotator came out on top but there were some major punches thrown by both sides. But now? Rotator is at 100% power, baby! For the first time this season we’ll get to see what this robot is capable of. Bloodsport has moved some of its weapon-centric parts to the little bug head atop the robot and years ago we saw what Rotator did to Icewave who had a similar design. Could it happen again? It’s unlikely but you never know.

That’s 1/4” AR500 steel armoring Rotator’s backside. I know this because earlier in the episode there was a mini segment where Victor had to have some of it plasma cut off because it was dragging on the floor and high centering the robot. It’s okay Victor I probably would’ve fucked that up too. This is heavy duty stuff and its angle will surely deflect Bloodsport upwards to destabilize it. All the armor in the world can’t save you from shitty driving however because as Rotator charges at Bloodsport with its plow the robot curves to the side and exposes its left fucking wheel to Bloodsport’s weapon. Bloodsport takes the shot and busts the mounting bracket for the plow and also slices a visible gash into it. It’s okay Victor I probably would’ve fucked that up too. Rotator seems to not know how to attack Bloodsport now with the integrity of its plow compromised. It sort of just lurches at Bloodsport with its spinner and takes a hit thanks to Bloodsport having the reach advantage. Rotator goes on the attack and hits Bloodsport’s corner but it doesn’t seem like much damage is being done to either robot in these exchanges.

Aaron Lucas on the Bloodsport team starts counting aloud the seconds until Bloodsport’s weapon is at top speed so Justin Marple knows when to back off and when to attack. Together they are coordinating well until Bloodsport gets into the center of the arena with Rotator in pursuit. Rotator slams into Bloodsport spinning it out and throwing it at the Upper Deck where for the first time this episode a robot gets stuck on the screws there. Bloodsport is teed up for an easy hit but Rotator is starting to feel the effects of that first major shot from Bloodsport to its left side; Rotator’s left wheel seems to be working intermittently and the robot simply cannot get over to Bloodsport in order to hit it. Bloodsport eventually gets down from the hazard and lands another big blow to Rotator. Rotator’s weapon comes to a halt. Bloodsport goes into a fucking frenzy landing hit after hit anywhere it can get purchase on Rotator. It throws so many punches that the front of its stupid little bug head thing falls off exposing the parts beneath it.

When the dust settles Rotator isn’t moving at all and Victor tells the ref that he’s done. Rotator may have been operating at full power for this fight but an early driving error cost it the whole match in the end. At 1-2 Rotator’s next fight is a must-win in order for it to hang in there and make it into the Round of 32.

WINNER: Bloodsport, KO

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This week we saw two robots complete their Fight Night qualifiers. Next week we’ll see even more. The hosts go over the results of this episode as they affect the robots’ overall standings and for all the robots at 2-1 the only one I sort of roll my eyes at is Switchback because it’s stumbled into two wins and hasn’t really had an actual fight so far. If Switchback goes 2-2 I can see it making it in at the lowest end of the pack and that’s assuming the selection committee doesn’t take a 1-3 robot with a stronger schedule over it. In the 1-2 category I can see Gigabyte and Rotator making it in, possibly Triton if it wins its next match. Lastly for the robots in the 0-3 group I think it’s lights out for Starchild. I’ll even go as far as to disagree with Chris & Kenny and say Glitch is out of the running too; it’s been irrefutably proven at this point that Glitch’s rookie season was a total fluke. It’s got a strong weapon but you need more than the biggest blackest dick to qualify.

Next week is episode 12 and we’re looking at some interesting fights. Claw Viper and Hypershock round out their Fight Nights and Claw Viper is currently undefeated. Big Dill fights Free Shipping in a battle of the small dick energy spinners. Gruff and Malice will fight in a battle that you can probably take a nap through. Actually no wait, scratch that because Lucky will be fighting Shreddit Bro so that’s the fight to go and get another bowl of popcorn during, my apologies. Lock-Jaw will face Mad Catter where I’m sure we can expect Lock-Jaw to smoke itself out again. The big draw is the main event though: Hydra versus Sawblaze. These are two of the best robots this season and this preliminary match up could very well be a preview of the championship if they make it that far in the tournament because I think it’s a safe bet to assume both Hydra and Sawblaze will qualify. Also I only count six fights so that means we’ll be getting an exhibition match in the coming episode too! We’ve yet to see Doom, Rusty, and Dragon King so the fight could be between any of those three.

That’s all I’ve got for BattleBots Update this week. I won’t lie I was enjoying the airing break by doing things like playing garbage games on Steam for the achievements because I don’t know how to enjoy good things anymore. I could’ve worked on the replacement for the Google Adsense ads but I expertly put that off until “some other time”. This project is entirely fan-funded so if you would like to contribute to BattleBots Update you can do so month to month on Patreon or do a one-time tip with Ko-Fi. You can also follow BattleBots Update on Facebook for everything else.

See you next week!

– Draco