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

[ShoFuKan]

Episode is out, same with Battlebotsraw part but the uploader has only included a googledrive link and bumps me from downloading it.
So I had to jump through a few hoops, including using google services to get it, upload it, redownload it so it isn't a 600mb file that I can post here. Bit of a run around this week and sorry if it's compressed to hell.
This is S06E12, Right side Bracket Round of 32 this week.

Bracket this week

Black Dragon is facing Madcatter. This was the only part of the intro that had the names all visible and not smudged.

Play in match: Hydra vs Defender, winner to face Ribbot.
Both bots have long forks. Defender gets flipped early and Defender seems to have lost it's left side drive. Defender gets flipped again and again. It doesn't seem to be doing anything to Hydra. It rips the Battlebots sign off another flip. Defender's grabber is broken. Trying to flip it out and not getting it. Flips him onto the Upper Deck and can't self right.
Defender counted out, Hydra advances.
See ya maybe next time Defender.
>And that's why the self sucks. Jake Ewert suffering a stroke.

Cobalt vs Yeti
Both bots spin up but miss each other. Yeti gets under Cobalt and pops him into the wall early. A blow from Cobalt spins Yeit over but self rights flipping back over. Cobalt backs away, then gets under Yeti and sends it straight up. That hit kills yeti's drive and the count out is started. Counted out, Cobalt get the win.
Sorry Yeti, you did well this year.

Jackpot vs Tombstone

Jackpot rushes early and smacks straight into Tombstone's blade, the both fly across the box. Tombstone stops himself from going into the wall, crawls along the edge and smacks Jackpot again, sending him flying. Jackpot's right side is spewing internals and lost it's weapon but can still move. Tombstone has lost it's weapon and it's left drive.
Tombstone gets counted out. Jackpot gets the win.
See ya next season Ray.

Big sparks.
Front left wedge, look at that gash. The aftershock all through out the frame as well. Huge hit there.

Madcatter vs Black Dragon
"It's a good thing he's called Black Dragon, because that's the color of the Trash Bag he's going home in."

Madcatter charges and flips itself over on Black Dragon's wedge. It flips itself back over. The prong on Catter is stopping them from hitting Black Dragon. Catter knocks of a fork off of Dragon. Catter flips itself again but reverts. Dragon's other front fork is gone. Dragon gets under Catter and shaves off it's armor. Catter gets a flip out of Dragon, gets pushed into the walls and another massive flip. Catter and Dragon exchange blows. Dragon's flame thrower manages to burn itself and set the bot on fire.
The match goes the full three minutes, goes to the judges. Split decision.
Jason for Black Dragon, Lisa for Mad Catter, Derek for Black Dragon.
Black Dragon gets the win. I hope to see ya next season Mad Catter, you were entertaining this seaon.

Blip vs Valkyrie
Blip charges Valkyrie's blade and eats the front of it on it's wedge. Valkyrie's blade the suddenly dies, Blip delivers a good flip to Valkyrie, sending it up to the Upper Deck. Manages to flip itself over. Another flip from Blip. And another. And another. And another in the corner sends it 8 feet in the air.
Honestly, I'm gonna end this here. You can guess what's going to happen. Blip's flipper is consistently sending Valkyrie 10 feet in the air. I think this proves that the design works.
Valkyrie gets knocked into a corner and counted out. Blip gets the KO.
See ya next year Valkyrie. Blip moves on.

HIGHLIGHTS:
Told ya. Captain Shrederator vs Rotator.

As much as I would like it, Cap loses, Rotator advances.
Whiplash vs Icewave
Icewave gets flipped upside down and as a result, Whiplash advances.

Tantrum vs Gigabyte
Gigabyte has a front plow and keeps Gigabyte back. A massive hit from Tantrum knocks Gigabyte into the wall, knocking off the plow. Gigabyte gets knocked around and lands on the upper deck. Another massive hit sends him flying again. Tantrum lost a wheel in that exchange however. Another huge hit by Gigabyte and it loses it's weapon. It becomes a push match and goes to the judges.
Unanimous decision to Tantrum.
See ya Gigabyte, that was a good fight.

Final Fight, Ribbot vs Hydra,
Ribbot has faced 4 flippers and no other spinners. It is being fed.
Wide early shot and you can see why, Hydra gets a good shot in early. All the way up into the lights.

Front end of Hydra gets knocked off and...

With Ribbot just riding Hydra's face, it's shaving down the entire front side of the bot. But Hydra can still flip. Ribbot flips around due to it's weapon. Ribbot's left wheel dies. It's counted out as it could only crab walk. Hydra actually gets the win.
By bye Ribbot, you were my dark horse but it also appears the even with the backing of the producers you couldn't do shit. Get outta here.
That was a good fight though.


Round of 16 bracket.

All 8 fights next episode then the quarter/semi/grand finals last episode I think.
Pretty good fights this week. See ya next week.

 

[ShoFuKan]

S06E13. Getting real close to the championship battle.

Had to compress it to hell again, it's a 600mb file that gets compressed to 280mb but is still too big for this site, so compress again to 160mb and suddenly it can fit but the audio is buggared. Sorry for that, Dailymotion has done something stupid which means you can no longer share videos, so I can't rip 360p encodes from them anymore. I would head over to the r/battlebotsraw subreddit, look for this episode number and find a link to download the episode there in good quality rather than my shit compressed version.
Hopefully the site isn't kill before we finally get to see who gets the giant nut.
Look above for the bracket for tonight. Up first:

Uppercut vs Riptide
Faruq channeling his inner Alex Jones

Uppercut? More like Buffbot.

Early hit from Riptide on Uppercut sending it into the wall. Riptide keeps the hits coming and knocks Uppercut right into the screws upright. He gets out but a foam like substance spreads all over the box after Riptide connects with Uppercut's tires. From BattleBotsUpdate:
"...slams into Uppercut’s left wheel causing a cascade of what looks like fucking saw dust to come out from the wheel. This is actually granular foam that’s packed inside of Uppercut so the robot can still have the benefit of pneumatic tires without the risk of them going flat."
Riptide knocks one of the side handles off of Riptide. And now it can't move, just waddle in a sad circle. Riptide gets the win via countout.

What a mess, see ya next year Uppercut.

Tantrum vs Rotator
Tantrum drives Rotator into the walls early. Gets in good punches. Rotator knocks the front of Tantrum's wedge. A good hit from Tantrum flips Rotator. Even though Rotator is inverted, it's getting good hits on Tantrum. Tantrum gets stuck and Rotator charges the wall, unfortunately. Rotator is chewing Tantrum though, all it can do is circles. More hits on the front. Tantrum manages to pin Rotator but releases. They keep trading blows. One more charge from Tantrum knocks Rotator over the edge of the box into out of bounds. They get the KO at the 1 second mark.

Rotator denied another year. See ya again maybe Victor.

Jackpot vs Blip
Blip maneuvers around Jackpot as he gets stuck on the floor. He gets under jackpot who shaves off the face of Blip but gets flipped over.

Get gets flipped again.

And Jackpot gets stuck on it's nose. It's weapon isn't working and it's just stuck there. Jackpot is counted out. Blip gets the KO.
Seems the House finally ran out of luck. Jackpot will probably be back next season, considering S7 is in Vegas.

Hydra vs Black Dragon
Hydra gets caught on the floor, but finally gets a good flip on Black Dragon early. Dragon gets around to the side of Hydra but just can't get it's weapon to connect. Dragon shaves the front of Hydra then gets flipped.

Hydra is actually doing what it was designed to do for once and that's flipping Black Dragon around the box. Another flip sends Black Dragon into a side wall upside down, unable to move but manage to get down. After some more flips, Black Dragon's weapon dies. Another flip from Hydra sends Dragon right side up. Another flip manages to set itself on fire. And upside down again.
The fight goes the full 3 minutes. 17 flips from Hydra. Judges give it 3 - 0 to Hydra.
See ya next time Black Dragon. Driving into the face of Hydra wasn't the best strategy.

Witch Doctor vs Copperhead

A massive weapon on weapon hit sends Witch Doctor flying.

Another hit flips Copperhead over. Witch Doctor charges.

And more hits from Witch Doctor. Copperhead is upside down and not moving. And they're counted out. Witch Doctor gets a quick KO and a place in the quarter finals. Copperhead was one of my hopefuls for this year. Maybe next season.

Sawblaze vs P1
Slawblaze gets around the side of P1 and lays in the saw. P1 loses a wheel early and is pushed around the box by Sawblaze.
The match goes the full 3 minutes but you already know the result, Sawblaze that that saw on the back, P1 doesn't. Judges give it 3 - 0 to Sawblaze.
Maybe try using that flipper sometime P1.

Highlight Fight: Cobalt vs Whiplash.
From BBU:
"Hey don’t think that just because there’s 8 fights on the docket that we’re going to get to see all of them! Much like in the Round of 32 episodes there seems to be a strict “no fun allowed” rule of only having 7 fights per episode and that’s it. That’s the only prescribed amount that the editors can fit in. There’s absolutely nothing that can be removed or downsized on for this most important of episodes to ensure that the tournament experience is complete and people don’t have to chase down random fucking YouTube videos after the fact to see the action."
Cobalt attacks early, gets behind Whiplash. Both bots then die. Time out called. Per Da Rulz, Cobalt's weapon was still spinning and couldn't safely be turned off, the match then went to the judges. Split decision 2 - 1 in favor of Cobalt.
So Whiplash is out, Cobalt in. In case you're counting, Whiplash has 2 televised fights this season and BOTH his tournament fights were reduced to highlights, with last week with Icewave being a highlight.
This shit stinks to high heaven. I do think Colbat should have won on damage alone, imgur gallery of post fight. But the way the producers have screwed over last year's runner up? Yeah, that's BS.

Statements:
Cobalt:

Whiplash:

>TL;DR - Battlebots ignored their own procedures in such a way to favour one robot over the other and selectively edited the footage to disguise what they did. Their actions may have a significant impact on one of their most successful teams' ability to compete in future events.

>It gets worse.
I am not gonna like that fight, am I? If they screw over Blip who's been a genuine rookie shot at the nut this season... I have a real bad feeling about next week.

I am really starting to hate the producers. An hour and a half show to only air 7 fights, 3 highlights of fights and the double KO between Tombstone and Mammoth as all their fault. Their interference and trying to turn this into a reality TV type thing isn't working as it's only pissing off the fans.

Minotaur vs Endgame
Finally, the one match you've been waiting for. They faced each other before in the 2019 Desperado where Minotaur won.
Weapon on weapon and Minotaur is the first to knock End Game away. Another good his from Minotaur. End Game gets stuck inside the Killsaws but gets unstuck and hit by Minotaur. End Game's turn now, it gets in a few good hits. Look at Daniel using the force from the Drum to drive sideways and keep away from End Game.

Hit from Minotaur sends End Game flying back. It bends one of End Game's forks back. Minotaur starts munching the front of End Game and a hit sends him flying back. Another weapon on weapon hit, more munching. Endgame gets trapped by the hammer in the corner and Minotaur shaves off it's front forks.
End Game ends up vertical as Minotaur attacks the baseplate. Another good hit from Minotaur.
The match goes the full 3 minutes.
Judges give the match 3 - 0 to Minotaur. That's it, End Game, the reigning champ and straight winner through to this round has lost and is out.

THE BRACKET FOR THE CHAMPIONSHIP EPISODE:

No matter who wins, there will be a new champion this season, just like last. If only the producers stop screwing up matches.
As for who I think will win? Literally anyone but I'm putting chances on Blip, Cobalt, Minotaur. Sawblaze/Riptide could go either way, probably Riptide.
See ya for the final episode next time.

Also an April Fools joke, as far as I know, Faruq is staying for S7.

 

[BONE_Buddy]

I guess I should post this here:

Narwalk Havoc Robot League had their first of the year event. While they don't have the super-heavies of Battlebots, they do a huge amount of 3lb, 12lb, and 30lb combat.

https://www.youtube.com/c/NorwalkHavoc/videos

Latest event was damn near 16 hours of streaming, and over 8 of which is combat.

 

[Gender: Xenomorph]

How rigged are the fights?

Watching S1E5 Biteforce vs Overhaul and thinking if the fight was rigged to give it an even fight? And in E1 there's the waddler bot versus that brain bot and the brain bot just stops at one point so the other can land a hit... Sussy.

And some team take their identity a little too serious and it's super geeky (looking at you, Witch Doctor)

 

[ShoFuKan]

How rigged are the fights?

Between a fight that could be good for television and given a free win by the producers. They are the ones who ultimately settle the fight card and no matter who you put against each other, you're going to have some fights that are one sided. You could say Capt vs Tombstone this season was rigged for Tombstone only to have the Capt actually win that one.

Potential Championship spoilers and/or speculation.
Oh boy. So remember how I said there was going to be controversy? The subreddit is nervous because alot of builders are saying the Cobalt vs Whiplash fight was edited that way deliberately by the producers and as a result, another controversy is going to happen in the championship episode that could potentially upset alot of builders.
Two main theories are:
1. Blip is subjected to the OOTA rules that have not been enforced all season, specifically sections 7.5.4 and 7.5.9.
The Shelf isn't just a cool area with red lights to put a bot. Supposedly according to the rules, the judges can start a 10 second countdown if a bot is placed up there at any point in time but the one I think will get Blip is it will flip Hydra into the area near the doors. The judges will then enforce OOTA and disqualify Blip, resulting in Hydra advancing.
2. A bot falls out of the tournament like Glitch did and is replaced by another bot who then goes onto claim the nut.
What this bot is and what it's replaced by, can't say. My guess would be Cobalt falls out and replaced by either Whiplash or End Game. The producers subbing in the champ or would be champ who goes onto win. I can absolutely see that happening. The editing of the fight around Cobalt is a deliberate tell and in their post fight analysis, they said it was edited that way by the producers.
There could also be a real dark horse who the producers push like 0 - 3 Lock Jaw just to give Donald Hudson his reboot season giant nut.

Hypershock on reminding people that Battlebots is a TV show. He argues that the game of telephone the producers are playing is what resulted in their editing. I say someone made that phone call in the first place to only highlight Cobalt vs Whiplash.
Robert Cowan, head of team Copperhead is stepping back from captaining and cites Discovery's treatment of his team, with fights ending up on youtube and only highlighted on TV. Can't say I blame him.
Greg Gibson of Yeti says he's out and Hal Rucker of Duck! says he's out? Maybe retirement, maybe just done with Duck! and working on a new bot.

Summary of the controversy last week.

Various Rumors:
This is Capt Shred, Smeeeee and Sawblaze all saying the next one is way worse. I don't think Sawblaze gets the nut this year.

Campus here says there's 2 controversies next episode.

The Judges decisions have been pretty consistent this year. Not too many bad takes thanks to the new scoring system. I'd still like to see those cards after a fight however.

If Donald Hudson and Lock Jaw win, I'd actually be surprised. He's 0 - 3 this season, remember.

A good observation. They're facing Sawblaze.

Apparently there's going to be a "Golden Bolt" fight. Might be a 3 way rumble like they've done in the past. This extra fight however, means that pushes the championship episode fights to 8, meaning again, one of the final fights will probably be highlighted. God forbid they highlight the championship fight just to show this "golden bolt" rumble.

Few more.

This one here actually brings up another controversy from days pass.

Back in the Comedy Central days, Season 3, World Heavyweight Championship. Son of Whyachi vs Biohazard. The core of the match was Son got 2 hits on Biohazard but Biohazard then died and was counted out. It went back to the judges who gave it to Son of Whyachi. I'm going to say it's not the first time a Ewert bot in a Championship bracket has caused upsets before.

So to recap. Blip vs Hydra has Hydra going over Blip because it's favored by the producers/Jake Ewert pulls out some contraption like he did in his fight against Huge with the bicycle rack. Riptide vs Sawblaze has Riptide win because Sawblaze gets it's forks stuck. Not really controversial? But something must have happened to make it such. Minotaur vs Witch Doctor could have Witch Doctor go over because again, favored by the producers. They were given a free win on Rusty to bump them up to 2 - 1 for the tournament. Cobalt vs Tantrum possibly has Cobalt bow out and is replaced by Whiplash/End Game/Lock Jaw/god knows who else who then goes on to win the giant nut, upsetting everyone because they either re-earned a spot after being beaten or got inserted into the bracket by the producers when they didn't qualify for the tournament. Any of these fights could also be highlighted to make way for the "golden bolt" fight.
The thing is any one of these could be true. And that's the scary part, honestly. The FUD surrounding what happens next episode.

 

[ShoFuKan]

Ep is just out. The controversies were surrounding the Minotaur vs Witch Doctor fight and Tantrum vs Hydra fight and we'll get to those. My thoughts on the entire season will be at the end. It should be noted that Bounty Hunters was filmed during/right after this and the Giant Bolt awards, which are usually awarded at the end of every season will be at the end of Bounty Hunters instead.

This is S06E14, championship episode. BBU article.

Spoiler: Long play by play. Spoiled to save space

Riptide vs Sawblaze
Riptide gets stuck on the floor. He gets flipped by Sawblaze early. Riptide's beater is still spinning but the dustpan of Sawblaze can easily get in there. He flips back over and Sawblaze pins Riptide against the wall. Weapon on dustpan sends both people back. Another hit flips Riptide over. And then Sawblaze pushes Riptide on to it's side.
Riptide is counted out. 5 - 0 win record broken. Sawblaze moves onto the semis.
See ya next year Riptide.

Cobalt vs Tantrum
Contrary to my beliefs, Cobalt was ready for this fight.
Cobalt and Tantrum circle early. Tantrum gets underneath Cobalt and pushes him into the wall. Tantrum chews the front forks of Cobalt but still no big hits. They circle each other for awhile till Tantrum finally gets underneath Cobalt. It punches and flips Cobalt out of the arena.
Cobalt is counted out, Tantrum goes into the semis like it did last season.

See ya Cobalt. Always destructive but not this time.

Blip vs Hydra
Blip tries to get under Hydra, but Hydra has that long fork sticking out and flips Blip. Another flip. 2 flips trying to flip right side up, flopping around like a fish out of water. Blip ends up on the corner of the Shelf.

Blip has magnets on the underside of the bot. Basically sticking the bot to the metal rail. It's back left wheel was also damaged, meaning it could only turn right but couldn't due to the magnets. Blip is counted out, Hydra advances.

I'm okay with this. You could say that Blip was counted out a bit too early but it was on the shelf and it was given 10 seconds to show movement before the count started. So it's sad to see a favorite of mine go but it was a fair fight. Hydra will face Tantrum in the semis.

Speaking of fair fights...

Witch Doctor vs Minotaur.
Oh boy, here we go. I didn't predict this one to have controversy. Lets go over the events then give context.
Daniel wants to he nut.

Minotaur hits Witch Doctor early. But Witch Doctor lands 2 good hits on Minotaur. Weapon on weapon flips Witch Doctor up. Another hit sends Witch Doctor to the corner as it's weapon contacts the floor. Minotaur pins Witch Doctor, when moves back to the center where Witch Doctor goes flying. Front wedge of Witch Doctor is missing, Minotaur moves around and scores another hit. Minotaur gets stuck on the screws, allowing Witch Doctor a hit. And Minotaur is on the upper deck. Minotaur's left tire isn't working. It's at this point 2 things happen.
1. Witch Doctor goes to hit Minotaur, misses and it's weapon becomes embedded in the Shelf wall. Meaning Witch Doctor is effectively stuck.
2. Minotaur's left tire falls off from the bot, meaning it only has it's right tire left.

Both refs signal Time Out. Witch Doctor is unstuck, Minotaur has still lost a wheel. The match resumes.
Minotaur crab walks with the drum, Witch Doctor moves to the center of the box and stays there.

Minotaur is trying to crabwalk into Witch Doctor and avoid being counted out like Whiplash was. Witch Doctor is staying out because they think Minotaur is about to be counted out because it's only crab walking.
>Andrea says "Don't engage." while the driver asks "Are they going to count Minotaur out?"
The refs in all this are telling Minotaur "You need to show me controlled movement" and telling Witch Doctor "They're going to be counted out any second now."
Just as a count was about to be started for Minotaur, the match ends. With 90 seconds of Witch Doctor dancing around Minotaur. Witch Doctor's driver is obviously angry, same with people on team Minotaur. The result goes to the judges. The crowd starts chanting "Mino-Taur."
>Andrea says "They know they lost."
Unanimous decision. For...

Witch Doctor.
Judges score cards:

You can hear some of the boos already start from the crowd. Andrea is talking to the crowd but you can hear the yelling. The editor's did their best to hide audio from the crowd.
Daniel is not happy. This is one awkward interview segment for both teams, because you know some BS happened.

So Witch Doctor advances. Minotaur I think really do have a good shot at the nut, something like this really should have been for them.

Response from Reddit is about to be expected. They blame sexism.
This is a mod post so take with a grain of salt, you know how reddit likes to exaggerate.

So Andrea and Lisa get hate because they're womyn? How about instead Andrea is a public face for Witch Doctor, so if her team gets involved in a controversy like this, it'd fall on her. And Lisa as a judge, more than others, has made bad calls in the past. Maybe you're looking at it from your obvious reddit bias.

Reddit moment:

I have seen some builders say the crowd was bad but no specific posts I can cap. I still say the mod is "Dude, trust me." Blah blah, Witch Doctor did nothing wrong. Except they spent 90 seconds of the fight not engaging. According to rule 7.6.2, that's not allowed.

Here's another rules take.
My opinion is that if the match wasn't unstuck, Minotaur would have won. But since Witch Doctor didn't engage in the 90 seconds they had in the second half, they got an undeserved win. Which is why Minotaur and the fans feel upset. In the end though, this is another example of inconsistent rules fugging over a match.

Hydra vs Tantrum
I have to cover the names now to not spoil it.

Tantrum gets caught on the kill slots and Hydra gets an early flip in. Tantrum circles Hydra and gets a fork under and manages to flip Hydra around. A flip from Hydra sends Tantrum flying. And another. Tantrum gets another hit underneath Hydra. Hydra gets a quick flip on Tantrum however. Another big flip from Hydra. They move about a bit with another flip from Hydra. Tantrum gets the front of Hydra and slams into it with it's fist. But they fail to do much damage and Hydra flips them away. Tantrum on the attack and pushes Hydra into a corner. Hydra gets in a massive flip in the final seconds of the match.

Full 3 minute fight, which means it's judges decision. Split decision.
Jason for Tantrum, Lisa for Hydra, Derek for...
Tantrum.
Some boos. Not as many as Witch Doctor.

So, was Hydra cheated out of a win? I'm kind of on the fence. It's a good bot but like Rotator, it needs to get a KO in the box otherwise it'll go to the judges who'll award more damage points to the opponent. If the scoring criteria were different, I think Hydra would have won. But regardless, Tantrum goes through to the final match.
Judges score cards.

Reason why Derek and Jason gave more points into aggression to Tantrum was because Tantrum drove Hydra into the corner multiple times, while Hydra mostly sat around the center of the arena, which is why it got the more control score.
Also another example of Lisa being the outlying judge. Ctrl+F Lisa the past few pages, you'll see.


Sawblaze vs Witch Doctor.

Sawblaze gets knocked on the floor early, Witch Doctor circles around. 3 hits knocks off a wheel off of Sawblaze. Knocks the wheel away and chomps on those forks, A knock into the wall sends Sawblaze flying.

Witch Doctor still underneath Sawblaze. Attacking the area where the flamethrower is. The flamethrower activates and now Sawblaze is on fire.

Sawblaze is counted out. Witch Doctor again in the final of another Championship match.


CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH
Witch Doctor vs Tantrum

Both bots circle each other. Tantrum drives under Witch Doctor first. And Witch Doctor's right front wheel is jammed. Tantrum goes around the side and drives them into the wall. Weapon on weapon hits, Tantrum attacks Witch Doctor more. Tantrum backs off from Witch Doctor but goes back in. Belt is lost from Witch Doctor. Tantrum moves away again but goes back in with the occasional jab. Runs them into the wall and flips Witch Doctor over. Witch Doctor flips back over. Tantrum tries to punch Witch Doctor but it's not connecting. Witch Doctor can only crabwalk and is counted out. Tantrum gets the win with seven seconds left.

Low energy final, if I'm being honest. Witch Doctor probably isn't happy being snubbed once again by mechanical issues and not performing in the box. I do think Tantrum deserve it, although I think they would have lost to Sawblaze.
Tantrum beginning arc

Tantrum end arc

That was the 2021, Season 6 of Battlebots. I'm going to give my over all assessment now, so unmarked spoilers ahead.
What a mess to shift through. There were some issues early in the season, like if the Upper Deck/Shelf would be worth a damn and it only got worse as the season dragged on. There have been some good fights, Minotaur, Bloodsport, Tombstone, Skorpios are all good destructive bots. But the season as a whole has been pretty bad. Being pushed for time due to delays and Corona measures, obvious feeds by the producers (Valkyrie, Hydra, Ribbot getting Seed #2, Witch Doctor and Rusty), the highlighting of championship matches that feature bots that are fan favorites (Whiplash and Copperhead had both fights highlighted), due to the delays, many bots only getting 2 fights televised (All that effort and 2 weeks in Vegas for maybe 10 minutes on national tv - Copperhead former team lead) and worse of all, the inconsistency of rules and then covering it up in post (Mammoth vs Tombstone double K.O., Cobalt and Whiplash fight and now two more fights in Witch Doctor vs Minotaur and Tantrum vs Hydra).
This sums it all up for me:

1. Longer season was necessary for more fights.
2. I don't know if Mammoth was the best substitute for Witch Doctor, as that could imply being fed.
3.Highlighting Championship fights really was a bad move.
4. The Cobalt/Whiplash fight was also bad, they knew Cobalt could be powered down but decided to play it up in editing.
5. And then with the previous situation, no wonder Minotaur was yelling at the judge because he was going to be counted out like Whiplash was.
6. Add even more confusion and you get the judges decision for Minotaur/Witch Doctor.
7. Despite the expanded point varity, bad calls seem to happen. You can argue Hydra dominated it's fight but because it didn't do much damage, it was given to Tantrum instead.
Some more:

1. Witch Doctor faced Duck (W), End Game(L), Rusty(W) and Mammoth(W) before facing Copperhead(W) in a fight that was highlighted.
2. Ribbot is over-rated. It faced Defender(W), Overhaul(W) and P1(W) before Hydra(L) managed to knock it out of it's bracket for Hydra to advance.
3. Hydra faced End Game(L), Gruff(W) and Glitch(L) before winning it's pay-in match against Defender(W). I would say Hydra was fed to get it into the Championship with Defender.
This guy has a summary:

Spoiler: Text

More Waaagh sexism.

So leaving 2021 season behind and looking to S7 and 2022 that will be filmed sometime after Bounty Hunters air. Not sure when that it. Is there anything that is going to be improved upon?
Well according to the Twitter, the unstick and crabwalk rules are being changed with help from the builders. The Upper Deck is getting a re-design (scrap it all together). And no more highlighting of tournament fights, source is dude trust me though, can't find that post.

Twitter polls on results:

Additional information:
Statement from team Minotaur:

Witch Doctor statement:

Judges Perspective:

Spoiler: Long

Tantrum, the new champion saying fuck the Shelf.

About the Killsaws, while they don't do much damage, the slots are used against low ground clearance game. As Deep Six found out, they were actually widened this year but the teams weren't notified. The Saw slots I see as a way to keep every bot from using forks and going low ground every match. That along with the deteriorating condition of the floor is another arena hazard the teams have to overcome.
About Witch Doctor: I don't personally like them as a team, I find them leaning too hard into their persona that it comes across as cringe. Witch Doctor have done stuff like promote Battlebots to kids however, so they've done some good. The way they were treated was entirely the production side's fault. They were fed the free win over Rusty, the fight against Copperhead was highlighted and they got the judges decision over Minotaur. They could have attacked Minotaur which I think they should have done but they were being told "Minotaur is being counted out any second now". Production messed up bad this season, not the builders.

Last few things:
MVP for the season is Rusty.

AMA for Witch Doctor on reddit is this weekend if you want to harass them.

And that statue they were building out of the spare parts from the bots is up on Ebay. Current bid $2,500 USD. All proceeds to go to the Grant Imahara STEAM foundation.

Here's hoping next season is better. I'll be back for Bounty Hunters.

Post Script: This website here hosts good quality streams of Robot Wars season 1 to 7. It's free with ads, according to their FAQ. It also appears they got access to the BBC archive copies, given how high quality the episodes are.
>It's ran by Passion Distribution, who handle selling Robot Wars & other Mentorn shows.

Post-Post Script: Found something really interesting.
So Dracophile. His name is that of a furry yet he himself is a former one. I'll spare you long winded posts but suffice to say Draco has seen the light, cut ties with people he knew and spent some time just getting back to normal. I haven't read S10 on his site because he wrote it after the season had aired. He's doing good this season however. (If you read this Draco, I love your write ups man).
I bring this up because Jake Ewert of Hydra entered the topic and he commented on it.

This was 2019 (Donald looks like he's aged 10 years in 4).

This is the current season.

But the rumor about Bad Dragon. Does Jake Ewert use their products?

What's that in your hands there Jake?

Oh... Oh no...

 

[Polyboros2]

On the Champ:
I was hopeful for Blip or Sawblaze, but I liked Tantrum winning. This is entirely based on thinking he had a cool weapon. As I have just watched the edited down fights and know little to nothing about the drivers/team.

I think Tantrum earned that win over Hydra. I agree with the two judges 2 1 2 and 3 2 1 for Hydra and Tantrum respectively. They can cry muh harassment all they want on Lisa, her rating on that fight shows she's shit. I can't remember a fight this season I've seen of Hydra where I think it deserves a 2 for aggression. Hydra's entire strategy seems to be to lurk in the center and let them get on his forks. He definitely gets under them ocassionally, but I'd say 3/4th of the time, it's the opponent who runs into his weapon/up his ramp. On the opposite end, giving tantrum a 1 for that fight? 90% of the aggression was Tantrum, most to half of the flips Hydra got was from Tantrum's trying to get and angle on him and running up the ramp.

On the controversy:
Initially, knowing going into this episode that there was a controversy, I thought it was going to be Tantrum throwing Cobalt out of the box. If the judges determine that was done on purpose, its a disqualification, though despite happening about half a dozen times, it was never used. I thought people were going to be upset cause Tantrum was winning that fight, and definitely drives Cobalt into that corner before Cobalt got flipped out, and they were going to steal the win to give it to Cobalt.

However, I think the mainly fucked up thing is how much they let Minotaur go disabled. Minotaur definitely was winning until it got on the screws and top decked. However it lost a fucking wheel, that it did it itself doesn't matter. They only stuck I can remember was Kraken vs someone, where the bots got stuck together. In the show they definitely call it quicker than Kraken, but I don't think the quick time out would of changed the result. Minotaur was lost with that tire, and should of been counted out. I don't see it getting a freebie on a stuck Witch Doctor likely making that big of a difference. Witch Doctor is a tough bot and it would of had to be a 1 hit KO for Minotaur to get the win at that point.

 

[whatever I feel like]

How rigged are the fights?

Watching S1E5 Biteforce vs Overhaul and thinking if the fight was rigged to give it an even fight? And in E1 there's the waddler bot versus that brain bot and the brain bot just stops at one point so the other can land a hit... Sussy.

And some team take their identity a little too serious and it's super geeky (looking at you, Witch Doctor)

Not rigged at all. BattleBots is legally considered a gameshow and laws against rigging gameshows are incredibly strict in the US.

 

[Gender: Xenomorph]

Bummed out that they skipped/rushed some of the fights. Would really love to see those clunky bots battle it out for the qulaifiers.

Would pay for DvD release if they included clips of post-battle damage assessment. I would really like to see in-detail damage report on some of those bots and what went wrong.

 

[ShoFuKan]

40 pound bot called Depth Charge dug into and broke the Lexan glass during this match.

 

[whatever I feel like]

Here are my post-regular season thoughts and replies to your posts, now that I am in front of a computer. I know some of you (ShoFuKan) are a member of some of the same groups as me, so you already know this. And I ain't spoiling shit, episode aired five days ago now.

You could say Capt vs Tombstone this season was rigged for Tombstone only to have the Capt actually win that one.

This was actually them giving Tombstone a difficult/disadvantageous fight. It relies on ripping its opponents apart with its maximum weight and tip-speed weapon. Its greatest fear is a massive wedge being able to take its hits. And it just so happens that the body of an FBS or ring-spinner is a super-strong wedge that covers the entire bot. Other horizontal spinners, such as Tombstone or Bloodsport are at a disadvantage while facing them. This is why Bloodsport turned their weapon off after breaking Chronos (a ring-spinner) and spent the second half of that match pushing it around last year, for instance.

Jake and Bad Dragon

I know he has, and has been filmed wearing, a different Bad Dragon mask too. Its an aheago dragon mouth one. On BD, I think I remember hearing about them finding actual animals sexually attractive back in the early/mid-2000s (I guess it makes sense if they rose to fame making non-human penises) as part of the old Something Awful cultural background of disliking furries. But I find Draco's specific hatred of them interesting. He's said on Discord before that he actually has trouble talking about... whatever it is that they did... because its bad for his mental health. What is his bad blood, did they fuck him over on making a fursuit or whatever? Who knows... Anyways, I find their love of Hydra/team ups with Jake to be hilarious. Does Draco thinks that Jake is a furry? Because it certainly sounds like he thinks its more than just an athlete/fan relationship. And apparently putting glowing eyes into a cardboard head is "stealing a design" now? Whatever, fuck off Draco.

Judge Lisa says...

Lisa was the lone wolf a lot last season, but she's almost always been in the majority this season. She seems to follow the judging rules to the letter, which can occasionally come off odd since the rules for Aggression, in particular, are shit. The judging matrix also makes it extremely hard to give a bot a 0 in Control (it would basically have to start the fight not working properly and then somehow go the full 3 minutes without being KOed) or Aggression (it would have to run away for all 3 minutes.) This results in results like Witch Doctor getting the win over Minotaur despite it spending the second half of the fight running away, or Hydra planting its ass in the center of the arena and forcing its opponents to come at it. I know a lot of people hate how heavily weighted the Damage category is but I would argue its the only one that doesn't need changing or tweaking. Sorry control-bot fans, your darlings are boring POSes and I don't want them on tv.

Your new champion... Tantrum!

Tantrum is... underwhelming... as a champion to me. But looking back they did have a good set of tourney wins. Rotator, Hydra, Witch Doctor, Gigabyte. Those are all good wins, including two of them (Rotator and Hydra) which were heavily hyped as nut contenders prior to filming. Even their fight night was two victories, including a KO, of bots which ended up making the tournament. Nothing illegitimate about that. They also had some deceptively good driving in their fights (avoiding delivering hits to Gigabyte's shell except when absolutely necessary, etc,) an incredibly well-built bot which did not fall apart despite tanking a lot of hits and excellent engineering which fixed last-year's flaws (weapon durability) while adding new twists that people didn't even think of like the lip on their wedge which was perfect for feeding the puncher. So a great bot but held back by the fact that they never faced End Game or Sawblaze, which looked like the strongest two bots during most of filming.

The controversy.

I don't think that Minotaur took the loss while they should have, I think they looked bad acting like they did. From the sounds of it, the audience acted even worse but you have to also accept that the OOTA Discord message/reddit post going around was from a limp-wristed "lets all be positive" crybaby who cherry-picked the worst of the crowd. Most people were not calling Lisa a cunt. That was one guy. Fuck that guy. It is easy for us all to sit around watching a well edited tv show and know exactly what is going on in a fight, but it is HARD to do that in person. I've been to lots of live fighting events (think MMA, etc.) and its hard to see through the cage/arena, the crowd in front of you, the damned cameras blocking your view, the limits of human sight over distance, etc. These people had no idea what the teams were saying to the judges, what happened to WD and Minotaur in the corner (apparently a lot of them thought that Minotaur was damaged during WD's unstick versus us clearly seeing the wheel fall off on its own on tv,) or what the specific minutiae of the unstick rules were, since the rules were so poorly worded that even teams didn't know. As such a lot of their reaction was down to an ignorance that us in tv-land do not have. I think the refs called things right on both the unstick and the lack of a count-out, and that the actual fight was very close and thus acceptably judged (6-5 in either direction would be fine, with all three judges going that way but in a single bot's favor.) I do want Minotaur back, they are great tv, but Greg and Trey need to communicate very clearly to them that their behavior was unacceptable and cannot be repeated. Lots of teams have been "screwed over" in BB's history, some quite close to the nut, but none of them have been as baby-ish about it as Minotaur were in that fight. Its ruined my opinion of the team, and I used to think they were awesome.

This season's problems.

This season had a stacked field, a ton of hype going in and initial super-fan quotes promising "only two or three bad fights in the whole season" from people who attended live. And yet, among those same fans, opinion on the season ended up being that it was bad, possibly the worst one since season 1/2 of the reboot or even going back to CC when the bots were lawn-mowers or wheel chairs with saw blades attached to them. I think some of it is due to bad luck. A lot of really great on-paper fights (think End Game/Hydra or End Game/Sawblaze) turned into duds due solely to bad luck. But we also had some bad planning on the part of the show-runners result in 2-0 bots not having time to get a third fight. This deprived us of lots of 2-0 on 2-0 fights, which would have been the best bots beating on each other and thus better television than a lot of the 1-1 on 1-1 fights we did end up getting. A lot of the teams felt slighted by not getting their third fight, or by having 1 of their few fights getting relegated to Youtube. It has damaged sponsor relations for some of them (fewer tv appearances) and some of them aren't going to be back due to it (the Copperhead captain, for instance, was offended by so many of his fights not going on TV and won't be back because of it.)

Reacting to.... certain controversies... last season, BB updated the rules this season. Yet they never changed or clarified the rules around crab-walking, which has left a lot of angry children acting very angry and childish due to the large number of crabby fights this season. For my part, I ended up agreeing with the referees in almost every count-out/non-count-out. Generally, if a bot could make its way towards its opponent (Minotaur continued to make its way towards Witch Doctor for 90 or so seconds and even made its way, slowly, to its starting square after the fight ended,) or drive consistently in a single direction (HiJinx could go backwards while fighting Kraken) then it was not counted out but if it could not (Ribbot was struggling to make its way towards Hydra) then it got the count.

The shelf, a creation of one man that was at best tolerated by everyone else (and vocally hated by most of those tolerators,) failed to have a positive effect on strategy or fight quality. It reduced arena-size, made it harder for drivers to see what their bots were doing, had some related rules which did not make sense, forced some teams to abandon planned upgrades and generally speaking set people back. Apparently its fate is now in builders' hands, with them being asked to give opinions on its future, whether that being tweaks or outright removal. My hope is that its gone and we get our gloriously big arena back again. Relatedly, the OOTA ban is probably going to be gone, with the toaster-slots remaining. That would be my hope anyway, let them be rare but able to be openly aimed for.

And, finally, it seems like there has been a general lack of respect towards the teams this year. BB has cut their fights, relegated good ones to Youtube, kept them out of the loop on rules changes, fought with them over sponsorships, had the static electricity problem, etc. I think some people are going to leave. It costs a lot of money and a lot of time to get on tv and there are always people growing out of, and coming into, the sport. A lot of this is just bad timing, or bad luck, and will probably, hopefully, be fixed next year.

But I hope that Greg and Trey were humbled by the consistent team feedback, and the audience revolt, this year and right the ship for next year. My recommendations would be as follows...

1) Invite slightly fewer teams in total, in order to get them all a proper amount of fights.
2) Invite fewer "grab and lift" style control bots, which were consistently unable to deliver good fights. Just keep the most historically successful or unique of them. Have a pre-show test where the ones that do show up prove that they can lift a 250 pound bot, as being able to do so is already in the active weapon rule-set. (other forms of violating weapon rules are an open question but this is the easiest one to test and only has to happen once per team.)
3) Crack down on teams not getting ready for fights in time. DQ them, have a back-up match ready to go, etc. Its not fair to their opponents.
4) Ditch the shelf.
5) Set out clear rules for crab-walking and OOTAs.
6) Pay a full-time social media guy and make next episode information (fight cards, pre-fight interviews) available earlier in the week. Put the YT fight up the night of the fight and hype it in the show.
7) Tell the "problem teams" to shape up, prior to filming, and let this be their last season if they don't. Specifically, Ribbot and Valkyrie have been causing problems for years and Minotaur were consistently bad sports on tv this season (Daniel Freitas yelled in End Game's faces after beating them too, its not just the WD fight.) There might also be other ones who flow below the radar from a fan perspective but those ones have a history of causing problems now.

 

[Polyboros2]

@whatever I feel like, quote bug

bad planning on the part of the show-runners result in 2-0 bots not having time to get a third fight. This deprived us of lots of 2-0 on 2-0 fights

Wasn't that due to there being a power outage in the filming city for multiple days? I mean I guess bad planning on not having extra time to film, but I feel like that is some pretty extreme circumstances. I feel like 2-0s going straight to the tourney is a fair compromise, however they definitely should of done something to accommodate those that failed achieve exposure.

Relatedly, the OOTA ban is probably going to be gone, with the toaster-slots remaining. That would be my hope anyway, let them be rare but able to be openly aimed for.

I only know about the OOTA ban from commentary. This is my first season from the CC days, so if it's come up before I don't know, and it was never enforced afaik this season. I personally think having that big open area as an instant lose spot would be unfun, I'd be ok if they put some sort of diagonal there or something to make it really hard to OOTA. Something that, if it happened, it was a win for the bot that did it, but could not be reliably done.

 

[whatever I feel like]

@whatever I feel like, quote bug

Wasn't that due to there being a power outage in the filming city for multiple days? I mean I guess bad planning on not having extra time to film, but I feel like that is some pretty extreme circumstances. I feel like 2-0s going straight to the tourney is a fair compromise, however they definitely should of done something to accommodate those that failed achieve exposure.

There was an outage on the afternoon of day 1, and that was it. They had the entire rest of the time there to come up with a solution. This also fucked over a lot of the teams, like SMEE, who weren't even given their first fight until day 3 and then were forced to do multiple fights a day to make up for it. SMEE, because of this, had to drop out of their last scheduled Fight Night fight and didn't make the tournament because of it, despite putting hours into trying to get their bot ready. After having beaten Deep Six they were supposed to then fight Mad Catter in the same day and, yeah, they probably would have lost that fight but the point is they weren't given the chance to. "Coincidently", SMEE is done with BB, they have already announced that they will not be back next year.

I only know about the OOTA ban from commentary. This is my first season from the CC days, so if it's come up before I don't know, and it was never enforced afaik this season. I personally think having that big open area as an instant lose spot would be unfun, I'd be ok if they put some sort of diagonal there or something to make it really hard to OOTA. Something that, if it happened, it was a win for the bot that did it, but could not be reliably done.

OOTAs were actually officially banned anywhere this year, for the first time. Immediately before filming they tweaked the rules to allow "unintentional" OOTAs and then failed to decided that a single one was intentionally done this year, even though Hydra almost certainly flipped Gruff out on purpose. In previous years they were always allowed and, in addition to the doorway slots, there were also "toaster slots" all the way around the edge of the arena. This has started to become a problem because bots like Uppercut could throw a robot halfway across, and out of, the arena without even really trying, ending fights after thirty seconds.

Its hard to lift a robot out of those and, if that bot is on fire, it was decided that it might even be a safety hazard, so they covered those up and just banned OOTAs in the doorway sections, which could not be covered. Builders hated this, as it removes the default win condition for grapplers and flippers. Anyways, Jake did exactly what BB feared most, throwing a robot that was on fire out of the arena, seemingly on purpose, and they didn't DQ him so I guess they pussied out. And if they aren't going to enforce a rule then they should get rid of it. Keep the toaster slots covered (I accidentally said open in my original post and lack the editing privileges necessary to correct it) but allow OOTAs in the corners. OOTAs, if they don't happen immediately, are lots of fun and people were pissed that BB tried to ban them. It wasn't, it used to just be a regular part of the floor, and that is what most people would want to see it return to being.

 

[ShoFuKan]

Some minor news for S7
Rumor mill is starting up. Bloodsport has already applied.
Duck!, P1, Kraken, Ghost Raptor and SMEEEEEEE! are all out for various reasons. Alot of bots from previous seasons have said they'll apply for S7, even Witch Doctor.
Tombstone is applying, but Ray recently hurt his hand by taking a table saw to his left index finger. Luckily he still has it and all his fingers but he can't use his hand till 2023, so his son Justin will be driving Tombstone instead in S7. Justin has worked with Mortician, a middle weight bar bot like Tombstone so he's familiar with the controls.
Also this is Ominous, from the Netherlands. They tried to apply for S5 and S6 but due to Corona lock downs, couldn't travel internationally. They may finally get their chance next season.

 

[Power Ranger Monster]

While this is back up I'd like to share theory on one of the fights from the Comedy Central run:

Christian Carlberg was intending to lose this match. Son Of Whyachi has already won the other semi-final match and Carlberg wan't willing to get that fancy blade all torn up. Thus he disabled the blade in this match under the guise of strategy, going in knowing the best he could do now wouldn't cut it with the judges, but at least people will say he tried.

 

[ShoFuKan]

Another bit of minor news, Draco has released the un-released prototype copy of the gamecube Battlebots game out to the public.

Short story is this game was vaporware for years. Produced in the waning days of the Comedy Central era, it never saw a release before Battlebots went off the air. It's been floating around in various builds and rumored copies for years before Draco managed to source it from someone. I'd recommend reading his article to how he tracked it down.

 

[whatever I feel like]

Reading his article and knowing a bit about the proto scene, sounds like it was actually a commonly shared build, held back only by the fact that nobody was actually part of both communities before. See also: he eventually was given it for free after being unwilling to trade bots for it.

 

[Polyboros2]

Duck!, P1, Kraken, Ghost Raptor and SMEEEEEEE! are all out for various reasons.

Duck and Smeeee I won't miss, I don't even remember Ghost Raptor. P1 was an ok bot, Kraken will be missed.

 

[whatever I feel like]

Ghost Raptor is the one that Cobalt crumpled up like an accordion. Various Raptor bots have been around since the days of US Robot Wars and even won a few nuts at lightweight back in the day but the current one sucks.

 

[Power Ranger Monster]

Ghost Raptor is the one that Cobalt crumpled up like an accordion. Various Raptor bots have been around since the days of US Robot Wars and even won a few nuts at lightweight back in the day but the current one sucks.

Funny you would bring up the Raptors. You may have heard that factoid about Alpha/Gamma Raptor fighting Serial Box Killer and Dr. Inferno Jr. in that order in three of the lightweight tournaments.

Interestingly this was very close to happening in the Season 2.0 tournament when it was called Beta Raptor. Both SBK and DIjr were just one opponent away:

http://runamok.tech/whowon/bb_s2_light.html

Of course this bears the question if these repeat encounters were all set up intentionally for them to (potentially) happen. For Season 2.0 I'd say yes, for the later seasons I'd say maybe.