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

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every time i watched this it was 90% talking heads babbling about shit nobody cares about and maybe 10% actual fights, most of which lasted less than 30 seconds. i remember the tombstone boomer consistently destroying everybody except for that one single match when he immediately got btfo
however i very clearly remember this one
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What a way to start. I know they have to appeal to the "Youtube Crowd" but all the jumpcuts are not what fights need. Have a stable camera with a wide view of the box, not 6 different cameras that focus only on the bots in every little detail. I can't place where they are in the box or what hazards they might run into if you zoom so close in. Youtube doesn't like it, reddit doesn't like it, I don't like it. It feels like the camera team that was with Discovery didn't come back so they had to hire another company that thought this was the best way to do it.

Matches:
Death Roll vs Golden Fury - Fury won by judges decision
Hypershock vs Huge - Huge managed to nick Hypershock's tires and get a KO.
Endgame vs Malice - Endgame lost their spinner and Malice managed to flip them, getting a KO.

I've got a full list of the rounds here:
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I also found a comment saying Pro League is getting a 2027 season, probably also on youtube:
Proleague.png

The scoring system apparently also go overhauled. It does "Damage & Engagement" as metrics now, which is similar to the NHRL uses.
This guy seems to have alot of the points covered:
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Next week is:
Tombstone vs Madcatter
Copperhead vs Jackpot
Manta vs Skorpios
 
Barry Williams said:
Lmao, couldn't stop himself from putting in the line at the end about AI BAD, even going as far as to give Bright Data the Voldemort treatment with a stupid nickname.

God these people are fucking broken.
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There was an incident where a Philippine human rights group was DDOSed with IPs tracing back to Bright Data. There's also an article from 3 weeks ago saying that Bright Data was installing Proxyware SDKs on smart devices to turn them into a network without informing the user.
The user is over-reacting though. Bright Data say they're a middleman when it comes to AI tech, so networking and data scraping. Worst case scenario, they are an arm of the Israeli military focused on building proxy networks to increase processing power and attack the cyber systems of enemy nations.
But they're funding Battlebots so whatever.
 
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Yeah, Atom94 (under-rated competitor, btw, if given another season they'd be another obnoxious generic vert that wins just by existing,) was "half-Canadian/half-Indian" but they were based out of Calgary, IIRC, so, you know, Canadian. As to Golden Fury, its a very meta design- could just be Riptide with the serial numbers filed off, which, you know, is probably the most competitive design in the field right now. Manta looks like that too, they're another "new" competitor that has been tearing shit up on off-tv fights for a year or two now. They're very lucky to have made the cut with that design as I am sure everyone and their dog was submitting proposals for robots like it. As to the fight itself I wanted Deathroll to win but it became obvious early on that it couldn't. Even with GF's weapon down their bar, by itself, was a bigger chunk of metal than anything DR had so they just stuffed it down the bot's throat and let the Aussies choke on it.

In regards to Hypershock and Huge, Huge is specifically designed to kill robots like default Hypershock so the HS team had to build an obnoxious "anti-huge" device, like all verts do. As is usually the case the thing failed and Huge ate Hypershock's wheels. Ascetically, I know that the modern version of Hypershock is by far the most effective one but I just think it looks uglier than, say, the season 5 version.

And then in the last fight Malice's only hope was to tank End Game's hits and hope their weapon broke. That happened almost immediately and at that point it was on EG to outdrive the dumb lump and push it into the corner for 3 minutes. They could only do it for 90 seconds before losing their fork and the fight itself. End Game ended the fight face down, ass up, just like the good old days of seasons 3 and 4.

edit: And, yes, I too hated the shitty editting.
 
New BB went up yesterday. Guess I kind of don't blame anyone in this thread for not paying attention, these fights are also kind of just "whatever". I don't know what the problem is, objectively these are the same robots (Copperhead, Jackpot, Mad Catter etc) that were on TV. I feel like they should be just as good as they used to be? The show "looks bad" because it has a smaller budget but that doesn't explain the bots also sucking.


Tombstone and Mad Catter were teased as the "big fight" this episode and they do the whole dog and pony show and Tombstone just doesn't work. No idea if this is "staged" for this makebelieve show or not. Aren't the robots usually put in their colored squares for the radio test? How did Tombstone get all the way into the center of the arena and then just "not work"? Smells fishy.

Jackpot vs Copperhead - Copperhead is driven by some literal kid now. This goes about as well as you'd expect. He sucks at driving, gets flipped over, and then hits the arena hazard platform and it breaks the drum weapon. Can't rag on him too bad because he's like nine years old so yeah he's probably going to suck at this especially driving it upside down when the controls are backwards. Jackpot on the other hand is driven by a grown ass man and randomly loses wheels and catches fire to the point where the team throws in the towel and the snake robot that did practically nothing gets a free win.

Manta vs Scorpios - Another terrible fucking fight. Scorpios literally dies in a single hit and it's not even a cool spectacular hit that blows it apart or anything, just a tap that kinks the front wedge and after the fight the driver finds out his battery plug broke from the impact. Literally season one Robot Wars shit where the "safety plug" of the robots would fall out if they got hit too hard.

Tombstone finally shows up at the end and Ray has swapped out the brand new fancy robot with the old version everyone remembers from the TV seasons. He just had that on lockdown backstage I guess. Objectively I love Tombstone, I like watching it rip shit apart but it's an old design and if it was going to stand any chance at winning fights in this YouTube event I feel like this worn out version isn't going to do it. Mad Catter's front plow just deflects the hits and winds up clocking Tombstone hard enough to destabilize it and mess up the wheels and then Tombstone catches fire because I guess the batteries got hit. It's kind of unclear if the "real" Tombstone (the new one) is going to show up or not.
 
whatever I feel like said:
Ray's not-adopted son isn't 18 yet, right? Real daddy wasn't letting him on tv for dickish reasons, last I heard.
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Are you talking about the Asian kid who drove Flaming Phoenix (or whatever it was called)? I don't think he's 18 yet, or even old enough to drive a car he was still pretty young when he was on the show a few years ago. I don't think he was nine like the Copperhead driver though.

Didn't know the kid's bio dad was being a dick about that though.
 
Barry Williams said:
Are you talking about the Asian kid who drove Flaming Phoenix (or whatever it was called)? I don't think he's 18 yet, or even old enough to drive a car he was still pretty young when he was on the show a few years ago. I don't think he was nine like the Copperhead driver though.

Didn't know the kid's bio dad was being a dick about that though.
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Its not like they're parading it around but yeah, that's why he hasn't been on in a few years.
 
Barry Williams said:
New BB went up yesterday.
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Kinda forgot tbh. Not use to new eps on a Thursday yet.

Matches:
Tombstone vs Madcatter
Delayed because the Tombstone brought into the box would not start, Ray brought out his older version that he knows works. Destructive as always, something goes flying, Tombstone catches on fire and can't get over to Catter, resulting in a KO win for Madcatter.
Copperhead vs Jackpot
Copperhead gets a KO from pinning Jackpot after it's batteries burst into flame and it loses motor function. Tap outs were a thing in the 2009 event, the CC days and NHRL events. So they're probably re-introducing it for this season.
Manta vs Skorpios
Speedy KO by Manta just going underneath Skorpios and having it not move again. This supposedly makes a 20 - 1 win streak by Manta, possibly a record that's better than Bite Force.

Barry Williams said:
Are you talking about the Asian kid who drove Flaming Phoenix (or whatever it was called)? I don't think he's 18 yet, or even old enough to drive a car he was still pretty young when he was on the show a few years ago. I don't think he was nine like the Copperhead driver though.

Didn't know the kid's bio dad was being a dick about that though.
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Perfect Pheonix? He was involved in the 2020 Season V but seems to have stepped back. There's a reference to him in the NHRL wiki driving Dread Hades from 2022, so I assume he competed there. It must be a family thing not to have Tyler on this year.

Matches for next time:
Ribbot vs Switchback
Magnitude vs Disarray
Valkyrie vs Terrortops

Took a quick look and it seems Draco is cooking something.
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whatever I feel like said:
BBU was even around for orignal CC BB, wasn't he?
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The way he's told the story is that he tried the blog/idea a couple of times in the past too, one of which was the CC seasons but I don't think he did them as the episodes aired. But yeah, he's been at it for a long time.
 
Been catching up on the past seasons with friends. I think we're on 2022 now, just after the COVID stuff. Some notes:

  • The various Troonbots and their Troon-Teams got a lot of groaning from everyone, even some of my more liberal-leaning friends, with comments of "Do they have to put their trans shit on everything? It's just fucking obnoxious at this point...". Troon fatigue is real and building up.
  • Rusty was universally loved, especially for shanking the Troon-Bot. They felt like the producers screwed him a bit by matching him with undefeated opponents instead of ones with losses.
  • Ribbot and Duck were both very pushed by the producers despite not being especially entertaining or effective. Especially once Duck went with just a "beak" instead of the armored wedge.
  • The guy running Tombstone seems to have mellowed out and seems pretty friendly instead of being an asshole like he used to, but that could be due to editing.
  • Witch Doctor was... polarizing. Half of us liked them due to a cool design/color scheme, fun props, and thought the girl was cute. The other half of us thought they were obnoxious, very obviously given favoritism by the producers, and the girl was an obnoxious pick-me that had way too much screen time. I was one of the latter.
  • The "Pit Girl" going around interviewing the teams was pretty widely mocked because she didn't really seem to want to be there or really give a shit about the bots.
  • The saws never seemed to be turned on. The holes for them were more of a hazard than the actual saw blades ever were. Supposedly this was because they burned out super easy and the production crew hated replacing them?
  • "'Mini-bots" were a joke. They do almost nothing and died the second they got touched.
 
Echo_Ender said:
Been catching up on the past seasons with friends. I think we're on 2022 now, just after the COVID stuff. Some notes:

  • The various Troonbots and their Troon-Teams got a lot of groaning from everyone, even some of my more liberal-leaning friends, with comments of "Do they have to put their trans shit on everything? It's just fucking obnoxious at this point...". Troon fatigue is real and building up.
  • Rusty was universally loved, especially for shanking the Troon-Bot. They felt like the producers screwed him a bit by matching him with undefeated opponents instead of ones with losses.
  • Ribbot and Duck were both very pushed by the producers despite not being especially entertaining or effective. Especially once Duck went with just a "beak" instead of the armored wedge.
  • The guy running Tombstone seems to have mellowed out and seems pretty friendly instead of being an asshole like he used to, but that could be due to editing.
  • Witch Doctor was... polarizing. Half of us liked them due to a cool design/color scheme, fun props, and thought the girl was cute. The other half of us thought they were obnoxious, very obviously given favoritism by the producers, and the girl was an obnoxious pick-me that had way too much screen time. I was one of the latter.
  • The "Pit Girl" going around interviewing the teams was pretty widely mocked because she didn't really seem to want to be there or really give a shit about the bots.
  • The saws never seemed to be turned on. The holes for them were more of a hazard than the actual saw blades ever were. Supposedly this was because they burned out super easy and the production crew hated replacing them?
  • "'Mini-bots" were a joke. They do almost nothing and died the second they got touched.
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Hmm...

Troonbot sucked.
Rusty was not screwed, if anything they gave him easy fights against non-destructive opponents and a ton of screentime. Actual bots that got repeatedly screwed were Huge (designed to kill standard bots so always given literally anything else including hard counter Whiplash multiple times,) P1, Smee and the Whyachis.
Ribbot is a polarizing bot but far from a joke, they're extremely competitive, sometimes obnoxiously so behind the scenes.
WD girl (Andrea Suarez) is an OG robot combat participant who built an FBS back in the early 2000s when that was even harder to do. She's far from a husband hunter, though she did get one through robots, I guess.
Ray (Tombstone guy) has always been extremely nice, its not his fault the team consistently fed him plastic shitboxes to destroy those first few seasons.
The first few pit girls sucked but Jenny Taft was cool. She stopped doing the show after the Covid season to focus on her real job, sidelining Big Ten football (which BB had switched to filming during.) She wasn't replaced so you won't have to deal with pit girls anymore.
The saws are, indeed, off 99 percent of the time, a fight has to really suck to get them activated. The slits are retained largely as an obstacle for ground-scrapers. It might not show up on tv but the steel floor panels do the same thing.
Mini-bots are a joke 90 percent of the time, glad you noticed.
 
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I think they told Ray to play it up as a heel in some of the earlier seasons. I've heard he's always been nice behind-the-scenes, but he used to ham it up a lot more as the "Bad guy who destroys weaker bots". I'm glad he moved away from that.

Also, I don't doubt that the WD girl knows her way around bots. I just think she's obnoxiously over-shilled, her team gimmick is cringy, and I legit thought her husband was her dad because he looks so much older.

In general, most of the people involved are pretty chill when not in front of the cameras, which is refreshing to see.

The only ones that seem like they're legitimate dickheads are Ethan Kurtz (The guy who destroyed Shredderator after ot was downed) and Jake Ewert (Acts like a bully, sore loser). And even that could be editing.
 
My opinion on the earlier seasons is that ABC was producing it "as an ABC show", meaning it had to look similar to the reality slop they produce (think American Idol or X Factor or America's Got Talent or whatever). You have to have the judges, and you have to have celebrity guest judges too. The Mythbusters guy? Yup. Some random DEI astronaut? Yup. One of the guys from some other random ass show on ABC? Especially yup, gotta cross-promote!

And you have to have conventionally attractive women as a co-host/presenter role too, even if they know fuck all about electronics. Gotta hire a cool black guy too to do the emceeing. You also have to do the competitor profiles filmed in their hometown and we have to hear the fucking sob stories about why they should win to endear them to the viewers.

The women co-hosts, celebrity judges, and sob stories all vanished when the show went to Discovery channel. Comedy Central fucked with the format too by trying to put jokes and shit in the show, so it's not just an ABC thing, but at least Discovery steered it back toward being mostly about the fights and the robots.
 
Barry Williams said:
My opinion on the earlier seasons is that ABC was producing it "as an ABC show", meaning it had to look similar to the reality slop they produce (think American Idol or X Factor or America's Got Talent or whatever). You have to have the judges, and you have to have celebrity guest judges too. The Mythbusters guy? Yup. Some random DEI astronaut? Yup. One of the guys from some other random ass show on ABC? Especially yup, gotta cross-promote!

And you have to have conventionally attractive women as a co-host/presenter role too, even if they know fuck all about electronics. Gotta hire a cool black guy too to do the emceeing. You also have to do the competitor profiles filmed in their hometown and we have to hear the fucking sob stories about why they should win to endear them to the viewers.

The women co-hosts, celebrity judges, and sob stories all vanished when the show went to Discovery channel. Comedy Central fucked with the format too by trying to put jokes and shit in the show, so it's not just an ABC thing, but at least Discovery steered it back toward being mostly about the fights and the robots.
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Mythbusters guy was heavily involved in Battlebots even before it was on TV, but yeah, ABC didn't know what to do with the show.
 
whatever I feel like said:
Mythbusters guy was heavily involved in Battlebots even before it was on TV, but yeah, ABC didn't know what to do with the show.
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Yeah, both him and Jamie built the Blendo robot that was "so powerful it was too dangerous for Robot Wars", but when Adam was brought on as a guest judge it was purely because to the average person he was "the funny one from Mythbusters". A BattleBots event from 20 years prior that never aired on TV might as well not exist to the average TV viewer.

edit: I think Grant from Mythbusters was also a BattleBots competitor too right? (fixed wording)
 
Barry Williams said:
Yeah, both him and Jamie built the Blendo robot that was "so powerful it was too dangerous for Robot Wars", but when Adam was brought on as a guest judge it was purely because to the average person he was "the funny one from Mythbusters". A BattleBots event from 20 years prior that never aired on TV might as well not exist to the average TV viewer.

edit: I think Grant from Mythbusters was also a BattleBots competitor too right? (fixed wording)
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Grant Imahara was a involved in the original Battlebots. I think he even won some competitions. They actually named the "Best Design" award after him.

That brain aneurism killing him right before he could get into the battlebot stuff again was tragic.


Jamie was involved too and seemed annoyed as hell when they brought Adam on as a guest. I thought he was just hamming it up, but after hearing that outside Mythbusters, he and Adam can't stand each other, I think his annoyance was legit.
 
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