History Series / BattleBots

*** Bite Force's tactic in the 2015 final match was to remove its lower jaw and replace it with a heavy-duty wedge as a defense against Tombstone. Bite Force's go-to maneuver for the match was to come in close from the side and and harry Tombstone to keep the latter bot's spinning blade out of play. Not flashy, but it did make for a rather tense match that lasted the full three minutes.

A fifth was to air in May 2020; due to the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic, filming of the season was delayed until later in the year with its format temporarily adjusted: three Fight Night matches per bot and no qualifier events like the Desperado Tournament, instead expanding the tournament to a 32-seed bracket. The season also added a series of side tournaments (''[=BattleBots: Bounty Hunters=]'') hosted after the main event. A sixth season (plus a second season of ''Bounty Hunters''), keeping this format, was filmed in 2021 and began airing January 2022, from a new venue in Las Vegas with a revamped arena.

** ''Bounty Hunters'': TBA

* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: It'd be easier to name the 'bots this ''doesn't'' apply too. Notable examples: Hazard, Vlad the Impaler, Bio-Hazard, Diesector, Nightmare, Deadblow, Overkill, Warhead, Mechavore, Mauler, Techno Destructo.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: Hundreds of robots have competed, but only a fraction of those have made it to television. Season 2 of the ABC reboot had ''56'' different robots competing. Discovery Channel's run had seasons with more than ''60'' robots. If not for the COVID-19 pandemic preventing several teams from travelling to the event, 2020's field would likely have been even larger.

* LongRunner: Several teams currently active in the Discovery Channel era competed in the original Comedy Central run, but only one - Donald Hutson's Mutant Robots, which now compete with Lock-Jaw - has appeared in every season since 2000. The team first appeared in the second ''Battlebots'' pay-per-view in 1999 and have had perfect attendance ever since.

(( A lot of robot combat fans remember the awesome OneHitKO Nightmare dealt to Slam Job in Season 3. What some may forget is that Nightmare broke down when it delivered that attack. You can tell by watching: After the hit Nightmare's weapon slows to a stop, and Nightmare doesn't budge at all for the rest of the match.

*** Most of the Robot Action League's wins are courtesy of their best known robot, Tentoumushi, Lisa Winter's famous ladybug sandbox robot. It and its ABC reboot successor Mega Tento owe their moderate success to being well-driven and difficult to actually KO due its shape and size, but their main weapon is engulfing the opponent in a ladybug-themed plastic sandbox cover.

* '''Season 6 (2021):''' TBA

* RingOut: Rarer than on [[Series/RobotWars its British counterpart]], but since the ABC seasons' arena has more gaps in the arena than the Comedy Central seasons, there have been more of these dished out by flippers and vertical spinners, with the first notable instance being Bronco dealing one of these to Stinger TKB in ABC Season 1.

* DoubleKnockout: A lot of robot combat fans remember the awesome OneHitKO Nightmare dealt to Slam Job in Season 3. What some may forget is that Nightmare broke down when it delivered that attack. You can tell by watching: After the hit Nightmare's weapon slows to a stop, and Nightmare doesn't budge at all for the rest of the match.

** Bite Force vs. [=HyperShock=] in the third reboot season was technically a ''two hit'' fight, but the first hit was the one that really mattered.

** This didn't work out for Bronco against Minotaur: it kept fighting after loosing wheels, but just like King Arthur, Minotaur systematically removed ''all six of them'' one by one.

* PovShot: Some robots are fitted with Slam Cams, cameras mounted somewhere on the robot that give a ‘bot’s eye view’ of the battle. The only problem is that they tend to fall off or stop working after the first few hits.

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/battlebots_logo.png]]

''[=BattleBots=]'' is a popular show about [[UsefulNotes/RobotCombat fighting robots]] that first aired on Creator/ComedyCentral for 5 seasons from 2000 until 2002, and then on Creator/{{ABC}} from 2015 to 2016 and Creator/DiscoveryChannel from 2018 onwards.

The show had strong ratings for most of its run on Comedy Central, especially for a (mostly) non-comedic and unscripted sports program, but declining viewership and network interest led to its cancellation in 2002. [=BattleBots=] Inc. ran a few untelevised tournaments in the years following, but the show did not return to TV for another 13 years.

A six-episode revival season premiered on ABC in 2015, hosted by commentators Chris Rose and Kenny Florian and in-ring announcements by Faruq Tauheed. Some changes were made to the rules, notably allowing flamethrowers and the overall removal of weight divisions - with one division set between the limits of the original Heavyweight and Super Heavyweight divisions. ABC renewed the series for a second season that premiered June 23, 2016, with a revised, 56-team tournament format, and the addition of [[DeathFromAbove drones]].

ABC did not renew the revival for a third season, but Creator/DiscoveryChannel's sister network Science picked up reruns of the ABC seasons in 2017, and then [[https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/battlebots-revived-discovery-science-channels-1081917 greenlit a third season]] which premiered May 11, 2018 on both Science and Discovery. The Discovery iteration of the show now features a new setup (dubbed "Fight Night") in which all robots compete in four matches, and their record from those fights determines their qualification for a 16-seed tournament at the end of the season. A fourth revival season began airing on Discovery in June 2019.

A fifth was to air in May 2020; due to the COVID-19 pandemic, filming of the season was delayed until later in the year with its format temporarily adjusted: three Fight Night matches per bot and no qualifier events like the Desperado Tournament, instead expanding the tournament to a 32-seed bracket. The season also added a series of side tournaments (''[=BattleBots: Bounty Hunters=]'') hosted after the main event. A sixth season (plus a second season of ''Bounty Hunters''), keeping this format, was filmed in 2021 and began airing January 2022, from a new venue in Las Vegas with a revamped arena.

A fifth was to air in May 2020; due to the COVID-19 pandemic, filming of the season was delayed until later in the year with its format temporarily adjusted: three Fight Night matches per bot and no qualifier events like the Desperado Tournament, instead expanding the tournament to a 32-seed bracket. The season also added a series of side tournaments (''[=BattleBots: Bounty Hunters=]'') hosted after the main event.

A sixth was to air in January 2022, this time set in Las Vegas and the OOTA zones removed and replaced with a large raised area with screws on the front known as the Upper Deck.

* SoLastSeason: Warhead suffered from this in the first season of the reboot on account of [[VillainForgotToLevelGrind not improving a great deal since its original appearance in Season 5.0]]. In the original series, it did very well, reaching the quarter-finals and becoming a very iconic robot to the series. In its next appearance 13 years later, it got [[CurbStompBattle curb-stomped]] twice. [[TookALevelInBadass However, then]] [[CrazyAwesome there was Season 2...]]

* CombatBreakDown: Some fights would start out with two sophisticated machines trading shots from axes or saws. Three minutes later, two dented boxes are pushing each other, the weapons having broken long ago. Example: Mechavore vs. Mauler 51-50.
** A perfect example is Tombstone vs. Bite Force, the final match of the ABC season. The former's weapon was disabled and its battery was heavily damaged, while the latter had driving problems due to the damage inflicted and could barely move. By the end, both were shoving each other with what little life they had left.
** And the next year, Tombstone vs. Yeti. Tombstone ripped apart one of Yeti's front tires and the supports for its drum, so it couldn't spin up without hitting the floor, but the chain driving Tombstone's weapon came loose, leading to a pushing match.
** This essentially was DUCK!'s way to win during the 2019 season's Last Chance Rumble. He still lost.
* CombatCommentator: Two. Bil and Sean/Tim provided banter for every single match. The reboot features Chris Rose and Kenny Florian doing the same.

* OutOfFocus [=/=] OffscreenMomentOfAwesome [=/=] ShooOutTheClowns: The original Comedy Central version of ''[=BattleBots=]'' was criticized for this, often skipping lower-seeded bot fights in favor of more "TV-friendly" matches, later adding comedy sketches and player backstories that took more time away from the bot fights. As such, even bots that made the TV rounds got ignored, which had the effect of making the tournament seem really disjointed. The Big B is a perfect example of this in Season 4.0, having been completely ignored until its last battle despite the fact that ''it reached the finals''. The ABC reboot thankfully averts this, showing almost every fight in its glory and thankfully avoiding the comedy sketches. The only matches that were skipped were a few in the qualifiers, and they were uploaded online. Only averted in the Discovery seasons further by showcasing at least 5 fights in their first season, and a minimum of ''seven'' fights in the second season.

** Drones were introduced in the ABC run's second season. While cool, they turned out to be unmaneuverable and more of a hindrance than a benefit. Bombshell's drone ended up wedging one of its props on the side of the arena and couldn't take off again. By the following competition, drones had largely disappeared from the competition, with the exception of a camera drone from a noncompetitor.

** After a runner-up finish in 2016, nobody expected Bombshell to get shut out in the regular season in 2018. [[spoiler:In a miraculous twist of fate, it wins the six-bot Last Chance Rumble then proceeds to knock out ''Tombstone'' in the round of 16...before promptly receiving a OneHitKnockOut to fellow automatic bid winner Lock-Jaw in the quarters.]]
** Rusty, an awkwardly-shaped robot built from rusted scrap metal and armed with a pneumatic drill, debuted in 2020 with little fanfare. Rusty's surprising resilience, and solo builder David Eaton's earnestness to compete, immediately endeared it to other teams and the audience alike, and the bot even managed to notch a couple wins under its belt between the regular season and side events.

* LightningBruiser: Superheavyweight Vladiator relied on its powerful armor and killer speed to ram opponents into submission. Diesector also qualifies, slightly slower than Vladiator but still pretty fast and with a great driver at the controls. Hazard is also one for the middleweights, what with its good speed, toughness, and crazy-high offensive capabilities.

** Though Ankle Biter had a strong showing at the 1999 Long Beach event, it then suffered a rather long series of first-round losses due to getting tipped over on its rear (not its back, as it's invertible) or getting its wedge stuck on something. Then, for Comedy Central's Season 5.0, Ankle Biter had its wedge swapped out for a self-righting mechanism on its rear and enjoyed six consecutive victories. Ankle Biter's wedge-with-a-spinning-saw-at-the-top design is now one of the more popular ones in robot combat, as the Discovery Channel Season 1 competition has several: Brutus, End Game, Bombshell, WAR Hawk, and Whiplash, with the 2018 versions of Lock-Jaw, Bite Force, Witch Doctor, and Yeti capable of arranging themselves into this formation if needed.
** The Australian robot [=DeathRoll=] first competed in the second ABC season, where it badly lost in both its only tournament qualifying fight and an exhibition rumble. The team took the next season off, and when the team returned in the second Discovery channel season it had a sturdier, more compact design with a much more damaging weapon. [=DeathRoll=] proceeded to surprise those who remembered its old design by qualifying for the round of 16 with four straight wins that were owed to its new weapon power and durability.

** ''Bounty Hunters'': Rotator (defeated Bronco), Skorpios (defeated Icewave), Gruff (lost to Tombstone), Lock-Jaw (defeated Beta), [=SubZero=] (lost to Witch Doctor) %% (Son of Whyachi)

* {{Aftershow}}: For Season 2, the show got ''Tale of the Tape'', hosted by members of the Hypershock and Witch Doctor teams. The show was broadcast over Twitch the night after an episode aired, and were later added to the show's [[https://www.youtube.com/user/battlebots official Youtube account]].

** Son of Whyachi dominated the heavyweight division in Season 3, winning all seven of its matches en route to a championship. After a rules change forced it into the superheavyweight division, it struggled to replicate its earlier success, losing in a first-round knockout in Season 4 and in the second round in Season 5. When it returned in ABC Season 2 it tore through the qualifiers with ease, but was PunchedAcrossTheRoom by Poison Arrow and knocked out in the Round of 32, making it a DoubleSubversion. [[spoiler: Happily, Son of Whyachi did much better in Discovery Season 1, finishing with a 3-1 record with all three of its wins being fast knockouts.]]

* LethalJokeCharacter[=/=]FightingClown:

** HUGE is a full-body vertical spinner, the second of its kind in history after the poorly-performing [[http://battlebots.wikia.com/wiki/Gyrax Gyrax]] and has gigantic plastic wheels (high-grade polypropylene, a tougher version of what 7-Eleven drink cups are made of). It has an incredibly high center of gravity and those wheels are always bending and look like they're about to snap...but they never actually collapse under the weight of the 250-pound bot and allow it to be flexible enough to stay balanced at all times. Said height also proves to be an asset in its debut match against [=SubZero=], whose launching arm is unable to actually reach the main body, and indeed, so little of HUGE is touching the ground that it is near impossible to actually flip or lift. [[spoiler:Mammoth figured out how to heave enough of HUGE out of the arena to immobilize it, though.]]

** The wedge lower to the ground has the advantage in lifting the other bot, so bots have been pushing their wedges lower and lower, which has backfired when bots briefly get stuck in the killsaw slats or hitting a bump in the floor with their wedge. Even after the Battlebox was rebuilt for 2020 to remove most of the imperfections, small seams in the floor or a bot's own damage can still trip them up. There have been instances where ''both'' bots in a fight have been stymied by this, like 2020's match between Hydra and Uppercut.

* TrailersAlwaysSpoil: The first episode of the 2015 season had a clip of Tombstone up against Bronco. If you look at the brackets, this clip indicates that those two robots would meet in the semifinals.