BattleBots - IT'S ROBOT FIGHTING TIME (probably spoilers)

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If they don't have a network then I don't believe in season 8. Prove me wrong, BB.

Yeah, basically this. They've been stating that they're planning on taping the next season some time in the next 6-8 months for two years now. The goal posts just keep getting moved.

It's strange that they had this whole announcement about Destruct-A-Thon ending... and then less than a month later they turn around and say "actually, ourbad, Destruct-A-Thon is still happening and we're doing the FaceOffs events next month as planned". Was that a ploy for attention or something? Like, claim the show is coming to an end and then turning around with a SIKE and saying it's still running? What happens in the very likely scenario where people only see the first announcement and just assume it's over for good?
 
Today I was made aware of a collab between Mark Rober and Dude Perfect(two huge youtube channels). And I found out about it cause Ray Billings uploaded a video about it, since they were doing a robot battle and needed someone to provide them with bots as well as expertise in robot fighting(particularly the safety).

Verdict: it fucking sucked, cause it was scripted and aimed at kiddie demographic. The arena looked too flimsy, but if what Ray says is true, it was just more fakery and all the "dangerous" parts(polycabonate cracking, robot getting flung onto the roof of Mark's booth, etc.) were staged and must've been filmed separately.
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Dude Perfect ended up using two of Ray's bots: Stink Eye and Brimstone, that they never called by their names, and hilariously enough, referred to Brimstone, which was brand new, as "decommissioned battlebot". And even though Mark would've been perfectly capable of building a bot of his own, he ended up using Blip that was designed and built by the same guys that made Tantrum. In the video he explains how the flipping mechanism works as if he was the one that designed it, although he does give credit in the description.

So yeah... redditors on the Battlebots sub hated it, but the target demographic seems to have loved it.
Link to reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/battlebots...ineer_mark_rober_vs_dude_perfect_feat_blip_5/
 
One and a half year thread bump and the show is actually coming back?

YouTube episodes don't sound all that exciting though, but I guess it's good to hear that the show survived being absolutely raped by the Discovery / Warner Bros merger. Hopefully the "new season" is better than the live-cut fights they have been doing from their nightly Vegas shows.
 
I came back with the milk. Just catching up on news.
So the Battlebot FaceOffs are being released again with the news of a new series. You can find the 5 eps available so far here:
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The announcers arn't Chris and Kenny, it's the Destruct-A-Thon ones I think.

These are placer battles for what should be World Championship 8, or S8 of the reboot season. Even after all this time they still haven't found a sponsor for it.

The actual big news though is BattleBots Pro League, a spin off series that was announced a few weeks ago by the Hollywood Reporter.
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From what I can tell, this is a separate series being filmed in May to then be put on YT in June. It would then go a few months in editing to be shown on Network TV as part of a new deal somewhere. Maybe.
The format is going to be Chris, Kenny and Faruq coming back to host a special tournament featuring bots like End Game, Tombstone and Witch Doctor.
This tournament is being sponsored by Bright Data, their branding is all over. From what I can tell, Bright Data is an Israeli VPN/Proxy service that provides traffic for AI companies. Think of them as the middle man between servers and LLMs and they're supposed to make $400 million by the middle of this year. They have money to burn if they want to sponsor a Battlebots tournament.
 
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So the Battlebot FaceOffs are happening right now. You can find the 5 eps available so far here:
Unless I am mistaken... BattleBots FaceOffs was something they filmed literally like two(?) years ago throughout their nightly Vegas events (Destruct-O-Thon). The entire series is available to their Facebook supporters (something I remember complaining about in this thread a long time ago), it's just taken them this long to get to the fifth episode of it on YouTube. Mind you, the things they are posting to YouTube I believe are the exact same cuts they made for Facebook supporters 2 years ago. It's just taken them this long to click the Upload Video button.

This is kind of a mess though. So FaceOffs are NOT the "YouTube only season that maybe might be going on Big Boy TV in the future". That would actually be this "Pro League" thing that's sponsored by some kike VPN/AI company. Yet, BattleBots has been dragging their feet posting their FaceOffs videos (and as far as I know 0 Proving Grounds videos have gone up on official channels) so what's going to happen is that if these Pro League videos are going to be filmed and posted in June, they are going to be mixed in with legacy content from FaceOffs that was filmed when fucking Biden was in office but was never posted until now.

Christ.

edit: I just realized I named no less than FOUR different spin-off "series" from BattleBots in this post. FaceOffs, Destruct-O-Thon, Proving Grounds, and Pro League. And I know during the TV series run they also had Champions and Bounty Hunters. Excellent branding guys, definitely not confusing at all.
 
Unless I am mistaken... BattleBots FaceOffs was something they filmed literally like two(?) years ago throughout their nightly Vegas events (Destruct-O-Thon).
Yeah, you're right. The original FaceOffs were filmed in 2024 and I assume they're just B-Roll BB have had lying around for them to upload whenever they feel like, like having a new sponsor available for a new spin-off series.
"The first FaceOffs group was split into two parts, the first of which premiered on March 27, 2025. The second half of Episode 1 would be shared on April 4 and Episode 2 was uploaded as a single episode on May 8, 2025. Episode 3 premiered on July 24 and Episode 4 followed on September 18. Following a six-month hiatus, Episode 5 released on March 5, 2026"
edit: I just realized I named no less than FOUR different spin-off "series" from BattleBots in this post. FaceOffs, Destruct-O-Thon, Proving Grounds, and Pro League. And I know during the TV series run they also had Champions and Bounty Hunters. Excellent branding guys, definitely not confusing at all.
Not even counting the Re;MARS event they had in 2019 or 2022.

Oh from the wikipage on Pro League:
"Hydra and Deep-Sea Shark were originally scheduled to compete in the Pro League, but withdrew and were replaced by Switchback and Ribbot."
"SawBlaze was invited to compete, but the team declined after "careful consideration", according to Jamison Go. Greg Munson confirmed this to be due to "personal reasons" on Facebook and Bloodsport got the callup to take their place."
"The same is true of Whiplash, though it is unknown who replaced the 2020 season runner-up."
"Monsoon was also invited, but the team declined as Tom and Sarah Brewster were expecting their first child."
"Banshee and Traves T. were "rejected" by BattleBots production, according to their team captains."

Some of these messages were posted in the NHRL public discord. Which seems to have attracted a few of the builders to use instead of Reddit for getting news out into the community.
 
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NHRL public discord
Cool so just another pozzed shithole for nonsense to be cast into the aether.

It's interesting that Traves T was "rejected" by production when that robot has pretty much been the stand-out star of their Proving Grounds event I think? That's the robot that looks like an impossibly rickety hunk of shit but it's literally just a big glass cannon with a giant spinning blade that blows things apart in a single hit. I assume maybe they were turned down because technically Traves T never competed in the televised seasons so they only want TV bots to be on this Pro League thing? Banshee just sucks though, despite that being one of the "TV bots" it sucked big time so yeah I can see production giving that team the thumbs down.

That said, no idea who Deep Sea Shark is, so I guess that kind of discounts my "Traves T was rejected for not being in a televised season" hypothesis.
 
Some of these messages were posted in the NHRL public discord. Which seems to have attracted a few of the builders to use instead of Reddit for getting news out into the community.
If you aren't part of it, the OOTA discord is pretty much the place to be for robot news. Thats not what you meant for NHRL public discord, is it?
 
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