If you don’t want spoilers, pray make haste and depart this page as there will be almost nothing that isn’t a spoiler. Seriously. Hie thee away! Get thee to a nunnery! All that stuff. Shoo!
OK, with that out of the way, welcome to my take on Fight Night 2 of Battlebots this season. It was another two-hour episode that featured less action per minute of broadcast than an NFL football game. I get that they need to pay the bills, but this feels excessive.
Fight 1: Shatter! v. Ghost Raptor
Just like last week, we started off with an enticing fight. This one featured Adam Wrigley’s Shatter! facing off against Chuck Pitzer’s Ghost Raptor. Shatter! debuted last year and, for a hammer bot, it was really interesting, featuring ablative armor and unusual wheels. It didn’t perform especially well, but you got the sense they’d learn from those defeats. Ghost Raptor is an older bot that’s taken several years off, but it still looks competitive. It features a top-mounted bar spinner on an articulated mount, allowing it to change the angle of attack and do some lifting.
Shatter! box-rushed Ghost Raptor because that’s what you do against spinners and everyone knows it. The hammer scored a couple of early hits and it looks like a much more threatening weapon than it did last year, when the head actually fell off one time. Ghost Raptor was dazed by the early blows and attempted to out-maneuver Shatter!, which wasn’t going to happen, and to push the hammer bot around, which did. But, the damage from those early hits was too much and Ghost Raptor just stopped moving. Wrigley explained afterwards that, based on what he could see, there was no shock absorption between the spinner and the internals, so mashing the spinning bar could knock stuff loose on the inside. It looked like that was exactly what happened. I like the way this guy thinks.
Winner: Shatter! (Knockout)
Fight 2: Ribbot v. Tracer
Last year, David Jin’s Ribbot, covered in frog-shaped green foam, looked like one of those ridiculous gimmick bots like Royale with Cheese that was fun to look at but served little function other than a punching bag. After they walloped End Game, you kind of had to take them seriously. This was the first year competing for Jason Woods’ Tracer, but he’s been in the pits for ten years so it’s not like he was a newbie. The concept behind Tracer seemed to be “Duck, but with a vertical bar spinner.” The bot was built to be indestructible first and damaging second.
Ribbot, a Swiss Army bot, came out with their undercutter, a low mounted disc spinner. Ribbot tried to get around the side of Tracer, but Tracer was more maneuverable than they had expected and they wound up going weapon-to-weapon. After a nervy couple of seconds, both bots were back at it. Ribbot swung around and caught tracer on left side of their front shield, flipping their opponent on its back. In theory, Tracer could self-right by using the spinner, but that almost never works and such was the case here as the little green frog that could claimed another victim.
Winner: Ribbot (Knockout)
Fight 3: Kraken v. Black Dragon
Fun fight, this one. This is the third year for Matthew Spurk’s Kraken, a bot that barely competed the first time out but improved mightily in their second year. It’s a control bot with huge front jaws and a couple of teeth. Gabriel Telles brought Black Dragon back for a second year. It’s not a revolutionary bot; it’s a vertical spinner, but last year it showed a good combination of power, reliability and quickness on it’s way to the Final 16.
Kraken performed an immediate box rush because, duh, and was able to get Black Dragon in its jaws almost immediately. However, Black Dragon went with their lightest spinners, a pair of vertical discs instead of the drum they usually use, and they did this in order to increase their top armor. This mean that, while Kraken could hold Black Dragon, it couldn’t really damage it.
Kraken did manage to burn a belt off of Black Dragon, but most of the damage was done to Kraken’s teeth (later, tooth) when the two of them came together. The other issue Kraken had was that it couldn’t get Black Dragon’s back wheels off the ground, so even when the Brazilian bot was clamped, it could still push Kraken around the box.
This one went the distance and, honestly, I could see it go either way. Black Dragon did a little more damage, but Kraken exhibited more control The judges were split, but Black Dragon was declared the winner.
Winner: Black Dragon (Spit decision)
Fight 4: HUGE v. Mammoth
This fight right here is why you should watch Battlebots. HUGE made a, um, huge splash when it debuted because it was so much bigger than the other bots. It’s a giant vertical bar spinner mounted between two wagon wheels. It looks like a joke, but it most certainly is not and it has clobbered some very good bots (ask Bronco). Ricky Willems saw HUGE and said “Hold my beer” and built Mammoth, a bot that stands 6’4” and shovels opponents out of the box.
This fight was nuts. The two of them came together right off the bat. Mammoth smacked HUGE, but HUGE’s spinner flipped Mammoth completely off the ground, bending its weapon in the process. This happened several times and somehow, both bots survived and landed on their wheels. I’ve never seen anything like it.
It looked like HUGE had this one under control, or, at least, like it was going to be the only bot able to do any damage. But, while the big spinner bot is surprisingly nimble, it doesn’t have great traction. Eventually, Mammoth was able to get HUGE into the corner and prevent it from getting its weapon up to speed and squared up for another hit. The big shovel/lifter/spinner on Mammoth kept whacking HUGE and eventually got one of HUGE’s wheels out of the box and that was that.
In the post-fight breakdown, Willems showed just how much damage he’d taken: Both structural support bars had holes in them and HUGE missed knocking his weapon chain off by less than half an inch. It was an incredibly close, incredibly entertaining fight.
Winner: Mammoth (Knockout)
Fight 5: HiJinx v. Claw Viper
It was a battle of veteran rookies as Jen Herchenroeder brought her undercutter bar spinner HiJinx to face Kevin Milczewski’s Claw Viper. Both captains have been on pit crews for years, so while the bots were new, they folks knew what they were doing. Claw Viper is a control bot with absolutely crazy speed and agility, so HiJinx was loaded with it’s smallest spinning bar to try to get the weapon up to speed as quickly as possible.
The fight opened with a box rush by Claw Viper and , while they didn’t exactly make great contact, the speed was genuinely breathtaking. They say it can go from 0-20 in half a second and I’d believe it. HiJinx managed to get the bar up to speed but it’s not the most nimble of bots so they struggled to get the weapon into position to hurt Claw Viper.
Claw Viper, on the other hand, kept dashing around and smacking into the weapon with their wedge and that worked pretty well. Pretty soon, HiJinx’s weapon was spinning, but the bot itself wasn’t moving anymore. The judge counted them out and that was that.
Winner: Claw Viper (Knockout)
Fight 6: Extinguisher v. Perfect Phoenix
Jonathan Flaacke’s Extinguisher, a hammer bot, wasn’t especially effective last year, showing the offensive power of Blacksmith and the reliability of Captain Shredderator (those aren’t compliments). He’s improved both shortcomings. Juli Johnson’s Perfect Phoenix, driven by 11 year old Tyler Nguyen, is a rebirth of the old bot Brutality. It’s a horizontal blade spinner and a very low-profile body.
Extinguisher opened the fight with the obligatory box rush, and Perfect Phoenix dodged it and got a good smack on Extinguisher’s defensive wedge. Whatever updates Flaacke made, they weren’t enough because that one hit rendered his bot immobile.
Winner: Perfect Phoenix (Knockout)
Fight 7: Witch Doctor v. HYDRA
Welcome to the main event! Andre Gellatly’s Witch Doctor, last season’s runner-up, and Jake Ewert’s HYDRA, the bot that wrested the flipper crown from Bronco last year. These are two legit great bots , both of which will expect to go deep in the tournament.
On paper, I thought this was a tough matchup for Witch Doctor. The bot excels at doing crazy damage and getting out of tight situations, but there have been reliability issues in the past. HYDRA is just an incredibly low, flat flipper that maneuvers well, is tough to damage, and can fire its weapon more often that most of its ilk.
The two of them went head to head right off the bat and Witch Doctor was launched ten feet into the air (and, remember, these are 250 pound bots). Not only did it keep on chugging, but the self-righting mechanism looked a lot more dependable than it has in the past.
This set the pattern: Witch Doctor would charge, maybe take a bite of Hydra, and then get launched. Early on, something in Witch Doctor became unbalanced (a lost drive belt?) and it started wobbling badly, but it was otherwise unhurt. The two bots came together multiple times, with Witch Doctor catching air at least ten times, but HYDRA was taking some blows to the side and it’s weirdly flat back section that just screams “attack me here!”
Witch Doctor started smoking and HYDRA was struggling to move. It got caught up on the floor and couldn’t show any forward movement, so the judge started the countdown. As soon as it started, HYDRA was able to shake itself loose. Neither bot had any punch left in it, and it went to the judges.
Honestly, this one could have gone either way. Both bots dished out and took a lot of punishment and kept on going.. The judges split on it, HYDRA won, and I think it was just about the right decision.
Winner: HYDRA (Split decision)
When your biggest complaint is the number of commercials, it’s a pretty great fight night. Two fights went to the judges and they were both split decisions, both very close in my opinion, but I wouldn’t say anyone was robbed. If you look for highlights, make sure you check out the HUGE/Mammoth fight because that was truly one for the ages.