Awesome / BattleBots

Uppercut causing SawBlaze to explode.

Many examples. The box is locked, the lights are on – it's awesome moment time.

Comedy Central

• Diesector versus Final Destiny in Season 5. Final Destiny was a rookie robot that was, in the builder's words, "designed to defeat Diesector and Toro", who were the two bots to watch in the Superheavyweight division. Diesector's standard weapons (a pair of clamping jaws and two hammers) didn't look like they'd be effective against FD's design (very low, giant spinning bar, similar to Hazard). Then when the fight starts we see that Diesector's team had actually removed its hammers and added two pipes to its jaws. The pipes slide under Final Destiny effortlessly and lift its own armor into the path of its blade. Final Destiny proceeds to rip its own armor off because it has no other way to fight and is helpless against Diesectors repeated lifts. The fight ends with Final Destiny spinning out of control and landing on its head as Diesector "yawns" at the effortless victory, surviving the "Diesector Killer" without a single injury.
  • Made especially awesome by the pre-fight interviews. Diesector's driver, Donald Hutson, says that he will "remove off [Final Destiny's] clovers, one leaf at a time." At the time, it seems like some obscure, luck-related metaphor, but once the fight begins, he proceeds to do exactly that.
• Also, Evil Cheese Wedge vs. The Butcher.
• Nightmare vs. SlamJob is one of the quintessential examples. As one of the commentators put it- "That was the quickest 34 seconds of my life!"
• Hazard vs. T-Minus — The latter handing the former his only defeat in the series, and it was a Curb-Stomp Battle.
• BioHazard vs. Son of Whyachi. The Season 3 Heavyweight Final ended up going to a judges decision after a slug fest that had both bots nearly counted out at different points.
• Ziggo vs. Scrap Daddy. You can go ahead and guess which robot lives up to its name by the end of this match.
• Blendo. First, the men who would become the Mythbusters designed this death machine. Second was that it was too hardcore to compete in Battlebots most of the time. It was so powerful that in early appearances it would damage the arena and send bits of its opponents and itself over the arena walls. Then, when it competed in the arena for the television show, it would frequently tear itself to pieces from its own power. If ever there were a robot that took to the arena like a Viking berserker, it was Blendo.
• Diesector vs Vladiator, in season 3; and their season 5 rematch.
  • That rematch had Vladiator breaking the actual BattleBox and forcing a halt of the match.
• Mechavore vs Vlad: The Impaler
• Son of Whyachi vs Nightmare. Two big spinners, one horizontal, one vertical, so at least one big hit guaranteed. Ultimately, it ends just as quickly as it starts- with Son of Whyachi putting Nightmare out of commission with one big hit from its rotary hammers, hurling it across the arena and tearing out both of its drive motors in the process.
• Slap 'em Silly vs. Afterthought: A teenager piloting a wedgebot wins by a 45-0 shutout decision against a spinner.
• The Big B's path to the Finals during Season 4.0. It started out at the very bottom without any byes and had to get eight victories in a row to get to the finals, more so than any other competitor before or since. Among them were high-profile bots like Das Bot, Slap 'Em Silly, and both of Team Raptor's lightweight entries that year. Even more so considering The Big B is a simple wedge. Sadly, Comedy Central's editing skipped all of its matches except its eventual loss to Ziggo in the final round, probably due to the divisive reception to simple wedges.
• Iceberg vs Phrizbee Ultimate. Phrizbee Ultimate proceeds to knock off two of Iceberg's wheels, and then Iceberg's plow. But the impact from the plow collision causes Phrizbee Ultimate to stop spinning. The now plow-less Iceberg then proceeds to unleash a can of whoopass on Phrizbee Ultimate, pushing him into every single box hazard culminating on Phrizbee Ultimate being flipped over by the screws.

ABC

• The first episode of the ABC reboot featured Nightmare hitting one of the Warrior Clan minibots, causing it to explode and fling shrapnel into the commentators' window. He didn't win, but damned if the old dog still doesn't have some bite.
  • It went on to win the 3-bot rumble at the end of the tournament, beating the crap out of Overhaul (after Overhaul had flipped Witch Doctor) and brushing aside Witch Doctor's minibot Shaman to be the last bot standing. Some legends truly never die.
• Bite Force vs. Warhead. Warhead is a veteran bot that were made by the same creators of Robot Wars' multi-championship winning competitor, Razer. Once the battle starts, Warhead is completely dominated by Bite Force's speed and pushing power, ends up being dragged around for the entire fight, and even getting lifted up off the ground and suplexed- by a complete newcomer! As Warhead was one of the big favourites at the start of the competition, this was a huge deal at the time.
• Tombstone vs. Counter Revolution. It is a Curb-Stomp Battle with Tombstone ripping open Counter Revolution's side with the first blow of its weapon, incapacitating it and its weapon with the second, and then gives two more blows that send it flying into the wall just because.
• Ghost Raptor is severely damaged in all of its battles (losing its weapon, becoming severely structurally weakened, etc.) and has to go into each new round with jury-rigged modifications yet manages to beat teams with bots that are coming in intact. The most impressive one being against Icewave, who was The Dreaded throughout the season and literally everyone thought he'd lose against. Ghost Raptor knocked it out in less than a minute, thanks to the "De-Icer"- a pole tipped with a two-pronged head designed specifically to keep Icewave from getting in close with its dangerous spinning blade- which he used to knock it off-balance and eventually flip it with its own weapon.
  Chuck Pitzer: You're mine, bitch!
• Witch Doctor vs. Tombstone. After losing the qualifiers and only making the Round of 16 thanks to the wildcard, then losing its minibot Shaman against OverDrive, Witch Doctor went up against Tombstone, who some thought to be invincible. It preceded to knock Tombstone all over the arena, taking blows from its blade like a champ. The best part was the fact that it snapped the blade in half. It still lost, but only due to bad luck; it was flipped over and couldn't right itself, by the same attack that destroyed Tombstone's blade. If Witch Doctor had come down on its wheels, it would have won. This fight redeemed Witch Doctor in the eyes of many viewers, having proved that Tombstone wasn't as tough as many had imagined.
• The final, Tombstone vs. Bite Force was an instant classic, with both robots dealing big blows while still going the distance. After several collisions and some near flips, Tombstone's blade was bent and the battery running the blade motor started smoking and one of Bite Force's treads was warped. Ultimately, the championship would go to Bite Force. An additional CMOA for Bite Force, as they defeated The Dreaded, who was the favorite to win the championship.
• Season 2 opened with the triumphant return of Son of Whyachi, and boy, did he come back with a vengeance. His first round in nearly thirteen years saw him pitted up against the 5-part multibot Creepy Crawlies, and the intimidating-looking Ultraviolent. Whyachi wastes absolutely no time obliterating every robot except a single minibot in one hit each. Some old dogs never lose their bite.
• The story of rejected Season 2 entrant Hellachopper is effectively one long Offscreen Moment of Awesome. To wit:
  • There's the simple fact that these guys built a robot that was too dangerous for the Battlebox to contain. Even the likes of Tombstone, Minotaur, and Son of Whyachi are within the parameters of what the Battlebox can handle. Hellachopper wasn't. That alone speaks volumes about how powerful its spinning weapon is.
  • The spinning weapon itself is an astonishing feat of engineering. Its three spinning hammers can extend outwards on winches to a maximum diameter of ten feet - at its design speed of 1600rpm this means the hammers are approaching the speed of sound^note 571 miles an hour, to be exact. And during its spin-up test it went even faster than that, to the point that the resulting wind shear destroyed its speed controller. Oh, and the hammers can also be adjusted laterally, so should one of them break off, one of the others will simply slide across to rebalance the weight distribution and stop it going out of control a la Mauler.
• Warhead vs. Obwalden Overlord in Season 2. Taking notes from their brutal losses to the top anti-spinner designs last time, Team Razer returned with a brand-new interchangeable weapon for Warhead for more effectively fighting them- a giant combined clamp/lifter in the shape of a Tyrannosaurus Rex head, complete with flamethrowers in the nostrils. It came up against the amazingly-engineered-but-fragile Obwalden Overlord in Round 1 and proceeded to curbstomp them- chewing through the arms and wiring in a manner Team Captain Ian Lewis described as being like "a terrier fighting a postman", partially melting it with the flamethrowers, before flipping it over and leaving it to burn...all topped off with more Saint George and Monty Python and the Holy Grail jokes than you can shake a pulverizer at.
  The slayer has been slain by the dragon!
  • And then, Warhead went and topped that with its next match against Complete Control in Round Two. There, they re-equipped their classic Spinning Dome, amped up in power since its last appearance against Stinger in Season 1, and complemented by two smaller flamethrowers in the self-righting arms. Cue it crippling Complete Control's drive with one hit, and then for the next one, hitting it hard enough to flip itself over and cause its opponent to literally explode into flames. Surely that's the end of it, right? Wrong. Warhead then, in an attempt to right itself^* Normally it can do so just fine using the wings, but since it fell onto its top rather than onto its side because of the wings being down, it couldn't— which was actually its downfall in its aforementioned fight with Stinger., proceeds to spin up the Dome— which causes it to literally rise up off the ground and coast along the floor using its own weapon and the gyroscopic forces from it to clock the burning Complete Control one last time. Whilst upside-down.
    • All in all? It's not often you see something that's taken levels in both badass and Beyond the Impossible, but the Razer guys definitely pulled it off— and with a machine that many initially thought was completely over-the-hill.
• Minotaur's utter Curb-Stomp Battle against Blacksmith in Round Two. Minotaur rips up Blacksmith over the course of the three minutes despite its opponent bravely attempting to fight back— first by destroying the front wedge, then the hammer, then the front panel, and finally topping it all off by ramming it into the wall as it carves into the exposed internals with the Drum. The result? The fight actually ends with Blacksmith exploding from the inside! Despite the curb-stomping it received, this arguably counts as a CMOA for Blacksmith as well because no matter how much punishment it received from Minotaur, it just refused to die.
• Red Devil vs. Witch Doctor started with the latter as the favorite to win. Red Devil rushed in to dominate the fight from the beginning, using its claws to keep Witch Doctor's spinner at bay while Devil's saw blade cut into Witch Doctor's battery pack. While this was happening, Red Devil also happened to flip Shaman onto its back and jammed one of its wheels, taking the multi-bot out of the fight. In the end, both Witch Doctor and Shaman were left inverted and immobile, with thick smoke pouring from Witch Doctor, and Shaman having set itself on fire with its own flamethrower. The resulting spectacle was summed up very well, here-
  Youtube Commenter: So... a Witch Doctor goes up against the Devil Himself, and the Devil grabs Witch Doctor and forcibly releases the power within it, causing it to be consumed in flames from the inside out.
  Did I just watch a Battlebots episode or the ending of The Princess and the Frog?
• Minotaur vs. Bronco. Minotaur spends the match individually peeling off every one of Bronco's exposed wheels until it's left sitting on its belly, while Bronco's flipper is completely incapable of flipping the symmetrical bot.
• Complete Control vs. Bombshell. The defining moment came when Complete Control caught Bombshell in its claws, then lifted it up into the air with its flamethrower and just roasted Bombshell for thirty seconds— which heated Bombshell up enough for its internal components to actually start melting. Made even more awesome by the fact that Bombshell went on to finish second that year; Complete Control took out the eventual runner-up and made it look easy.
• Poison Arrow vs. Son of Whyachi. After a not-so-impressive victory over Mega Tento, Poison Arrow was seeded #27 and had to face #6 Son of Whyachi, who was considered one of the bots to watch this season. Almost everyone predicted that the latter would win, likely ending in a One-Hit Kill. When their attacks collided, it did end in a one-hit kill alright, but it was Whyachi on the receiving end. Poison Arrow came out virtually unscathed; Whyachi got knocked 10 feet in the air, and taken totally out of commission by that one attack.
• Hypershock vs. Warrior Clan. Warrior Clan came into this fight aided by Dragon, a drone with dual vertical flamethrowers. To combat Dragon, Hypershock's team replaced one of its arms with... a rake. It was a huge gamble because without one of its arms, Hypershock wouldn't be able to right itself if it were to be flipped. But it worked anyway. The first chance Hypershock took, its rake swatted Dragon down to the floor, which allowed Hypershock to use its spinning drum to disable one flamethrower before making a direct hit with the other, causing an explosion that sent Dragon's remains flying over the arena floor. Hypershock then turned its drum to the back of Warrior Clan, tearing it open and disabling it before sending it to the pulverizer (and sending what was left of Dragon to the other pulverizer) for the knockout win. And to cap it off, Hypershock celebrated by waving to the crowd with the rake.
• beta vs. Overhaul had the former dominating almost from start to finish. Every time beta's hammer came down part of Overhaul broke, culminating in a devastating final hit that smashed Overhaul's master power switch and knocked it out. beta turned Overhaul off— with prejudice.
  • Then later on, there was its match against Nightmare in Round Three, which proved to be the very definition of a Heroic Second Wind in Battlebots. beta started off on the back foot, getting tossed around like a toy by Nightmare's powerful disc, and eventually having its hammer mechanism broken. It seems like beta's a goner at that point— especially considering that even if it did survive, it would have certainly lost the Judges' Decision anyway due to losing its main weapon— but with great driving and strategy, it got under the side of Nightmare with its wedge, forced it up against the wall, and then tipped it over onto its side to immobilize it. With no weapon. And only two seconds remaining on the clock.
  • In the quarter-finals, beta became the first robot in the 2016 series to go the distance with Tombstone, and might even have won if not for a lucky accident putting Tombstone on its back, raising its blade enough to attack beta's lesser-armored hammer assembly. Even still though, the fact that beta was tough enough to tank the blade and send Tombstone of all machines skittering around like a beetle in a bathtub for most of the fight speaks volumes.
  • The best thing about beta's entire run was, as was mentioned many times by the commentators, John Reid had been waiting fifteen years for this. beta had first been intended to enter in Series 5.0 on Comedy Central, then it was supposed to fight in the first reboot series. Circumstances had repeatedly conspired to keep beta from debuting for the longest time, and so when it finally got to fight, would it all end up as robot combat's biggest Anti-Climax? Would it bollocks!
• The Semi-Finals both had some awesome fights—
  • The first one, Bombshell vs Minotaur had Minotaur aggressively coming in, taking all sorts of chunks off Bombshell. Then it tries to hit the front, which is covered by a wedge and vertical disc spinner. The arrangement manages to No-Sell Minotaur's attacks, followed by making one precision hit at the under armor, forcing Minotaur to drive on one side, before ultimately falling after getting wedged up on on its own chassis.
  • The second one, Tombstone vs Yeti, like the previous Tombstone fight, saw Tombstone be forced to go the distance. It began with Tombstone chopping off Yeti's wheels, slowly and indirectly taking out Yeti's weapon. However, Yeti kept charging at Tombstone's side, taking out Tombstone's weapon entirely. In the end, Tombstone won by sheer driving skills, but Yeti still wowed everyone with its sheer tenacity.
• For 2016's three-bot Rumble, Wrecks, of all bots, entered. The other competitors mostly ignored Wrecks, not taking it seriously— with the walking mechanism, it can barely even move, and when it does so, it struggles to not fall over. But then, with some help from Bite Force, it managed to hit Witch Doctor with its vertical spinning disc so hard that it outright launched it over the arena wall, taking the former Semi-Finalist out immediately and upgrading Wrecks from Joke Character to Lethal Joke Character in one fell swoop.
• Minotaur vs. Warhead sees Warhead ''decapitated' within 20 seconds of the fight starting, with the spinning disc ricocheting off the screws and pinging around the arena like a pinball.

Discovery Channel Season 1

• The main event of episode 1 gives us the clash of the titans: Tombstone VS Minotaur. Despite coming out on the losing end, Minotaur takes repeated pounds from Tombstone and continues to soldier on. Even after its feared drum spinner was broken.
  • The sheer destructive force of the bots meeting tears a chunk out of the steel floor.
• Icewave VS Vanquish. A Curbstomp Battle in epic fashion as Icewave quite literally tears Vanquish in two.
  • And speaking of Icewave, Kenny Florian opens the episode of this match with this promo showing off how gloriously loud its engine is, calling it the muscle car of Battlebots. Not just an awesome moment for Icewave's team and their engineering prowess, but also for Kenny who is gushing in awe of its power and continuing to embrace robotic combat.
• Bite Force destroying HyperShock in two quick hits. The second ripping the bot open and spraying its innards everywhere.
• Son of Whyachi sending Monsoon flying across the Battlebox with a knockout blow, proving that the veteran robot still has the ability to make absolutely devastating hits 17 years after winning the championship.
• Very few robots have ever won by knocking their opponent out of the bounds of the arena, but Bronco did it twice this season: First to last season's second place robot Bombshell and then to the Stone Wall wedgebot DUCK!
• Many had counted out veteran driver Donald Hutson and his bot Lockjaw. Hutson silenced those critics when he cruised through the desperado tournament to earn a spot in the top 16. Special mention goes to his bout against Valkyrie. Where he shattered the other bots blade with a quickly attached metal wedge on the bots backside.
• When WAR Hawk lost left-side power less than 45 seconds into their fight with Overhaul, ordinarily a guaranteed defeat, their tiny minibot was able to stop Overhaul from doing anything to take advantage of WAR Hawk's predicament, even holding Overhaul in place long enough for WAR Hawk to stumble into it a few more times and deal even more damage. The announcers went so far as to say it's the best performance from any minibot they've ever seen.
• It takes some massive lugnuts to charge headfirst at the cyclone of pain named Tombstone. Whiplash apparently didn't get this memo, and actually had the reigning champ on the defensive for what seemed the first time ever. It didn't end well for Whiplash, but still.
• Episode 13 is full of awesome moments - fitting, as every fight featured a popular robot.
  • First, off, is Valkyrie tearing off an entire drive pod off of Red Devil, just like Icewave v. Vanquish.
    • The only difference is that all of Red Devil kept blocking Valkyrie's wedge to take it into a Judge's Decision - and even the missing drive pod was able to move on its own!
  • Brutus may have been aggressive with its wedge to de-power Gigabyte, but Gigabyte managed a reversal by flipping Brutus over once its vertical spinner started moving!
  • Bite Force, man. You can never go wrong with Bite Force winning every fight by flipping Bombshell over in the first 15 seconds, and then launching it out of the Battlebox in just 50 seconds.
  • Okay, but how about Son of Whyachi knocking out End Game in just 4 seconds? That has got to be the fastest knockout in Battlebots history. And with a massive collision to boot!
    • Bonus points once you take into account Son of Whyachi actually got KO'ed last season with Poison Arrow. This year, SOW did the exact same thing - and survived. It even took out an inner layer of Plexiglass!
• DUCK! putting its Stone Wall credentials to the ultimate test. That test being Tombstone. And it passed. The silly bot brought the reigning champ within 2 seconds of being counted out. And forced the normally destructive bot to go for the tires to eek out a win.
• Warhead vs. Warrior Dragon was a master class in adaptation. Despite taking a crippling amount of damage very early in the fight (their spinning disc snapped in half which unbalanced the entire bot and their flamethrower arm's control cable broke, leaving it limp) Warhead was able to make smart use of the pieces they had left to cow and intimidate Warrior Dragon for the remainder of the three minute bout and win the judges' decision.
• After turning their weapons power down the previous fight, Minotaur cranked its spinner back up to 100% for its fight against the beefy SubZero. And proceeded to rip the other bot to shreds. Handing SubZero its first knockout loss.
• Tearing a bot in half once is impressive. But Icewave decided once wasn't enough. And after chipping away at the-so called invincible plastic tires of HUGE, it ripped the crippled bot in two.
• Coming into its bout against HyperShock, Skorpios was beat up. With a quickly improvised weapon to replace its destroyed saw. And when the replacement saw broke, Skorpios turned itself into an impromptu grapple bot. Dragging HyperShock around the ring on its way to a win.
• Pretty much everything from the Round of 16 onwards, including:
  • Monsoon vs Sawblaze, a deadly battle of manoeuvre that ended with Monsoon surgically removing Sawblaze's tires before smashing its deadly saw arm into so much scrap metal.
  • With the lowest seed in the tournament, and just barely getting in at that, many expected Bombshell to be an easy snack for reigning champ, Tombstone. That was not the case, as it pulled the upset of the season by breaking Tombstone's weapon chain and taking the victory.
  • Minotaur bulldozed the first two rounds of the tournament, making short work of Witch Doctor (even causing the bot to catch on fire) and smartly choosing to overturn Monsoon and let it get counted out instead of continuing to fight it and potentially damage its spinner. Plus, with Tombstone knocked out early, many have begun to consider Minotaur to be the new favorite to win it all.
  • Lockjaw knocking out Bombshell... in one hit. Keep in mind, this was the very same Bombshell that just upset Tombstone in its previous match.
  • Rotator utterly shredding ICEWave, chipping away at the bots motor until there was barely any of it left.
  • HUGE doing what no other robot in the competition managed to do by putting Biteforce on the defensive, carving up its upper bodywork and disabling its deadly spinner. Unfortunately the damage it sustained against Icewave cost it the bout in the end, but it proved that unconventional designs are still viable.
  • Whiplash's young driver Matt Vasquez showing his stuff against Bronco during the quarter finals. Bronco spent the entire fight being shoved into the screws, chipped apart by Whiplash's disk and even flipped over multiple times, eventually ending the fight out of gas, immobile and smoking on the battlebox floor.
  • While not aired on Discovery Channel itself and only available on Youtube, the fight between Lockjaw and Son of Whyachi had some very good highlights, including the fact that Donald Hutson decided to attach the backplate (which was used to great effect against Valkyrie) to the back of Lockjaw. There were plenty of awesome hits done by Son of Whyachi, but it was clear that these blows were having an effect on Son of Whyachi more than Lockjaw as the spinning hammers would eventually shut down after the batteries overheated.
• The semifinals and finals did not disappoint either:
  • Minotaur surgically dismantled Lockjaw, first bending its forks, then taking chunks out of its tires, then getting underneath Donald Hutson's bot and chipping away at its underbelly until something important broke and it stopped moving.
  • Biteforce vs Whiplash was a repeat of Whiplash vs Bronco, only with Whiplash on the receiving end this time. The latter spent the entire fight being brutalised and tossed around by Biteforce's spinner and never once managed to mount any serious counterattack.
  • The grand final between Biteforce and Minotaur promised to be a spectacle, and it certainly delivered. Minotaur's drum tore off one of Biteforce's wedgelets early on, but the latter's deadly spinner proved the superior weapon as it tore off one of Minotaur's brick-like wheelguards. After many exchanges, Minotaur's weapon and drive died, allowing Paul Ventimiglia to claim his second giant nut in three years.
• Bronco vs. Lockjaw, culminating in Lockjaw being thrown over 10 feet in the air against the glass.

Discovery Channel Season 2

• Railgun Max vs. Mad Catter: Railgun Max broke Mad Catter in half.
• DUCK! vs. Cobalt: DUCK! wins by sheer durability. Despite getting flung around numerous times and losing its only weapon, DUCK! would just not die... meaning it won when Cobalt got pinned underneath a damaged floor seam and took itself out. It's a moment for Cobalt as well: considering not only was it absolutely in control right up until it got stuck, but it completely destroyed DUCK!'s front plate. Keep in mind, that's something not even Tombstone could break.
• Hydra vs. WAR Hawk: Hydra manages to do Railgun Max one better and split WAR Hawk in three pieces. With nothing but a flipper.
• Valkyrie vs Ragnarok: After losing to Hypershock, Valkyrie was looking for redemption, and boy howdy did the bot get it. Valkyrie struck in just the right spot to disable Ragnarok immediately, garnering one of the fastest knockouts in Battlebots history.
• Hypershock vs. Monsoon: Hypershock literally tore out the whole cradle for Monsoon's vertical bar, crippling it.
• Rotator goes up against Tombstone and defeats The Dreaded in a match full of nasty, violent hits — and Tombstone isn't the one making most of them. Nearing the end, both bots are beaten down to the point of struggling to simply move. Then Tombstone's internals burst into flames: but despite being extremely on fire, the robot manages to stay working for 90 seconds. In a nail biter, the referee's countdown races against the clock and Tombstone is declared knocked out with just two seconds left in the fight.
• Subzero vs. P1: Subzero hurls P1 out of the arena... and then for good measure, knocks the minibot out of the arena as well.
• Nelly the Ellybot vs Deep Six. Two words. Simultaneous. Knockout.
• Whiplash vs. Witch Doctor: Hard to say which was the more impressive feat, that Witch Doctor got Whiplash stuck behind the screws twice, or that Whiplash got itself out of the screws twice.
• Witch Doctor vs Gigabyte: Witch Doctor emulating Bronco tossing Gigabyte over 15 feet in the air. Repeatedly. And this was with the spinning power of its disks lowered. The beat down was so extreme that it caused Gigabyte to lose its first fight in the FOLLOWING YEAR.
• Quantum vs. Valkyrie: Despite having the piercing tooth for its crusher torn off early on, Quantum shows just how powerful it is regardless. It not only KOes Valkyrie by grappling it and then forcing it behind the Screws, but the post-fight reveals that it clamped down onto it hard enough to twist the frame and completely flatten the motor powering the spinner. WITH NO TEETH.
• Sawblaze vs. Son of Whyachi: Luke Ewert is completely outdriven by Jamison Go, with Go using his newly designed Hammer Sawblade to snap Son of Whyachi's tie rods, as well as causing Son of Whyachi to catch fire when said Hammer Sawblade cuts through the former's battery pack. And despite the damage AND the fire, Son of Whyachi is still moving.
• Biteforce vs. Tombstone. With a single well-placed hit, Biteforce snaps Tombstone's weapon in half and knocks off a wheel. And as hard as Tombstone tries to hang on and continue the fight, it's clear that it's over.
• Biteforce vs. Witch Doctor: Although Witch Doctor appears to get in some good hits, the damage on Biteforce is mostly cosmetic. Biteforce then proceeds to outdrive Witch Doctor and take out its opponent's weapons and self-righting mechanism to win the season with a decisive knock-out. Now having won three Giant Nuts (out of the four revival tournaments), Biteforce has cemented itself as the dominant bot in American bot fighting.

Discovery Channel Season 3

• Endgame vs. Tombstone: All the way back in Discovery Season 1, OYES Robotics made a bold claim that Endgame could beat Tombstone, but it's only now that they even got a match. So what happened? Endgame did beat Tombstone with extreme prejudice, launching the monstrous spinner out of the arena... within the first twenty seconds.
  Commentators: Oh my God, [Tombstone] got knocked out of the arena! (...) Endgame has done the unthinkable as it has knocked out the favorite!
• Perfect Phoenix vs. Extinguisher: Perfect Phoenix knocks out Extinguisher in one hit. Not bad at all for a robot built and piloted by an eleven-year-old. Granted, he's had plenty of experience — as noted by the commentators — in events such as Robogames and Bugglebots, but it's still one hell of an impressive debut; even compared to a lot of adult builders!
• Copperhead vs. Gigabyte: Copperhead became the first Bot this season to take out one of the ceiling lights by first snapping off Gigabyte's self-righting pole, then decapitating it and launching its spinning outer shell into the lighting rig. It says it all when Gigabyte was left in three neat separate pieces^note The pole, the spinner body, and the flipped robot underneath. afterward, as if Copperhead had surgically cut it apart.
• Uppercut vs. Gemini: Uppercut's first hit on the first of the two Gemini bots was a home-run shot, launching it across the entire length of the Arena and landing it behind the screws for a One-Hit KO. The second bot was swiftly dispatched with a second violent hit that sent pieces of it everywhere, marking the first time the very tough Gemini has ever been knocked out.
  Kenny Florian: "That wasn't even a fight, he just knocked out two dudes!"
• SlamMow vs. Pain Train: SlamMow! fricking suplexed Pain Train. You don't see that every day in robotics.
• Tombstone vs. Slap Box: After its initial teething troubles, Tombstone goes one better than Copperhead and breaks a camera in its fight against Slap Box by hurling a piece of wreckage at it.
  Happy Holidays! Our gift to you.
• Beta vs. Rotator: Normally, a spinner against a robot not using a weapon would be a walkover for the former; not so in Beta's case. Despite not using its hammer due to Rotator using its overhead spinner configuration^note Which would have destroyed the hammer and pretty much guaranteed its loss. That said, they did plan to use it for if Rotator flipped over from the force of hitting the wall with its spinner, but it ultimately didn't happen. Beta makes use of its stronger drivetrain and incredibly durable front wedge to Shield Bash Rotator into the walls and hazards, completely humiliating it outside of one lucky hit to the hammer head and winning the decision on aggression and strategy.
• Mammoth vs HUGE: No one found it surprising that this Battle of Giants would be impressive. Nobody — not even the drivers themselves — anticipated that a bot as tall and attenuated as Mammoth would end up somersaulting itself over HUGE again and again, like a freaking Combat Parkour expert, ultimately backing its fellow giant into the wall until one of its vaunted UHMW wheels got jammed behind the screws.
• Sharkoprion vs. Slap Box will forever be known as 'the one with the flaming suplex.' Sharko was able to get a solid bite on Slap Box's lifter, but Slap Box was able to surprise everyone by lifting Sharko completely off the ground and laying into it with a flamethrower for several seconds while flipping it overhead. Doubled as a Heartwarming Moment because the sheer spectacle of it all helped shake Sharko builder Ed Robinson out of his lingering depression^* His long-time friend and teammate had sadly died of cancer between seasons and got him smiling and laughing again, something both the announcers and Robinson himself commented on in a surprisingly touching post-match interview.
• Uppercut vs. SawBlaze (pictured above) saw SawBlaze literally exploding in the ring after Uppercut landed a direct hit on its flamethrower's fuel container, creating a massive fireball the judges could feel through the protective shielding. Though not a fatal blow in and of itself, SawBlaze didn't keep working for long after that.
• Speaking of fiery displays, Valkyrie vs Rotator is a prime candidate for Best Fireworks Show, for the torrents of sparks kicked up when these two horizontal spinners went head to head. Valkyrie also displayed some solo spark-spitting a few times, when blows from Rotator left her tipped up on her two wheels and the whirling edge of her blade clipped the Battlebox floor.
• Skorpios vs Tombstone: Skorpios just would not quit against Tombstone even after the latter gave it a full-on No-Holds-Barred Beatdown, even after the plow was pretty much ruined and it had a chunk taken out of one wheel. It paid off when Skorpios was finally able to tear out one of Tombstone's drive motors through sheer determination and driving skill; crippling the former champion and forcing it to be counted out, much to Ray Billings' irritation^* The teams and the referee were connected by speakers due to social distancing rules, and those speakers weren't working properly in this fight - Neither team immediately knew the ref was counting Tombstone out, which annoyed Ray since he could still drive on one wheel. This wasn't obvious due to the way the show was edited for television. Considering Skorpios failed to qualify for the main competition in its first appearance, it's certainly an impressive testament to how far it's come since then.
• Ribbot's strategy for its tournament bout against Uppercut: Run facefirst into its weapon. And it worked, with Ribbot somehow surviving despite losing two wheels and most of its face.
• Black Dragon vs. Ribbot. Black Dragon's weapon setup spectacularly catches fire 56 seconds into the fight. Thanks to a clever design — with their weapon motor/batteries being kept in their own sealed/reinforced compartment in the front away from everything else that could also set alight — not only do they keep fighting for the full three minutes while engulfed in flames, but they go on to win.
• Endgame ends its season like it began: by knocking Whiplash out of the arena to become the first non-American bot to win the Giant Nut.
• Special honors to the Battlebots tournament's planners, the arena designers that devised socially-distanced balconies for the onlooking teams, and to all the cast, crew members, build-crews, drivers, and families of all-of-the-above, for ensuring there would actually be a 2020 Championship. Thanks a bunch, guys, for giving us at least one contact sport to cheer for without reservation in the age of Covid.
• The postseason Bounty Hunters tournaments had plenty of formidable moments as well, proving that many teams still had plenty in the tank after the main tournament concluded:
  • In the Bronco bracket, Rotator continued its form that got to the round of 16 and took End Game to a split decision, with a clean sweep of knockouts over Axolotl, Captain Shrederator, Mad Catter, and the boss flipper itself, proving that its 1-2 Fight Night record was just a slow start impacted by a small sample size more than anything else.
  • Skorpios survived a tough draw in the Icewave bracket by going the distance in all four of their matches, including a fine duel against a formidable P1 and the always dazzling Hypershock before taking down Icewave. The biggest moment of all came in the team's final interview, overjoyed at how the $25,000 bounty would help keep their robotics platforms afloat through the pandemic.
  • The Tombstone bracket brought out terrific performances from many fan favorites, in particular the wild acrobatics of the Mammoth vs. SMEEEEEEEEE match. Kraken delivered another gritty run, but came up short to Gruff, looking for revenge on Ray Billings after a close loss in prior competition. Tombstone however, would have other plans, dismantling Gruff by knockout to shake off a disappointing 1-2 Fight Night record and round of 16 exit in the main tournament, reminding the other teams that Tombstone is still a contender when the stakes are high.
    • An honorable mention as well to Deadlift, who showed up too late to fight in the main tournament and lost their first match in the Icewave bracket; but came back to take down rookie phenomenon Jackpot in their second Bounty Hunters run, and came close to beating eventual winner Gruff as well.
  • Donald Hutson entered Lock Jaw into the Beta bracket, and as a past Desperado tournament champion, everyone knew he would be among the favorites to claim Beta's bounty. With Hutson's drive and clever engineering, his run was punctuated by a big knockout on Fusion and a dominant performance over Bloodsport (the 2 seed in the championship bracket) before putting Beta's hammer to rest, cementing Lock Jaw as one of the winning-est bots in the franchise since 2015.
  • Subzero scored two improbable knockouts in the Witch Doctor bracket: the first came on an aggressive flipfest on Valkyrie, after being taunted with their own shrapnel being paraded into the box, and the second via Spitfire's Heroic Sacrifice on Malice that deflected the spinner onto its side...after Subzero already lost two of their wheels. Witch Doctor took care of them in short order, but Subzero proved that Hydra isn't the only flipper that can stand up to the headliners—and as for Witch Doctor, the win was vindication for yet another 1-2 Fight Night record and round of 16 exit. ^note Witch Doctor was one of the last commitments for the 2020 tournament. The team diverted from a road trip on a whim to compete in California, with Witch Doctor shipped separately to the tournament venue in the nick of time, making their 3-3 overall record in 2020 rather formidable.
  • Last but not least was the Son of Whyachi bracket, led off by a wild match between Kraken and Rusty: Rusty cements its position as not only a fun bot, but also a surprisingly strong bot by not only beating Kraken, but doing its best Optimus Prime impression by tearing its face off with a jackhammer, doing more damage in the process than even heavy-hitting spinners like HUGE and Sawblaze did to it. Rusty's unanimous decision victory gave way to an epic tournament of knockouts, including Spicy Meatball putting in the assist for Big Dill to flip over Perfect Phoenix, and Gigabyte winning their rematch against Copperhead in the final. Gigabyte and Whyachi turned into a pair of wild pinballs before Gigabyte got the edge and flipped over the Comedy Central champion. Jake Ewert, ever the gracious loser, invited Gigabyte to deal even more damage, and with the match still well on the line had Whyachi been put back on its wheels, Gigabyte obliged. While they couldn't get Whyachi rolling again, this fight was still as worthy of season finale status as End Game and Whiplash's final.

Discovery Channel Season 4

• Deep Six’s final hits on Pain Train. For reference, Deep Six rips off Pain Train’s top so violently that the camera doesn’t even capture it flying away, then punts the crippled drum spinner into the screws where its batteries and motors fall out. Oh and one of the batteries catches fire, just to add insult to injury.
• Captain Shrederator beating Tombstone after the latter's weapon stopped working and got set on fire.
• P1 taking Valkyrie to a JD and winning, keep in mind that Valkyrie was able to to a lot of damage to bots like RotatoR, which is known for being durable, granted both robots were seeing stars by the end of it, they still made it to 3 minutes.
• Mammoth tanking Tombstone’s hits, these weren’t some glancing shots either, these were giant, humongous blows that would have instantly killed any other robot in the field (except maybe DUCK! if they got lucky). The fact that Mammoth was still at least somewhat mobile afterwards proves that it is far sturdier than it looks.
  • It should be noted that this match had to be decided by the judges, as the two bots managed a simultaneous incapacitation. Tombstone did get it to stop moving enough to get knocked out, but also knocked itself out in the process. Think about that.
• SawBlaze completely and utterly humiliating Mad Catter, tearing off its top armor, turning its mini bot, Gassy Cat, into a smokescreen and flipping Mad Catter over in the corner.
• Uppercut giving Free Shipping the same treatment it did with Sawblaze last season, before ripping its front wedge off. The explosion from Free Shipping's flamethrower fuel tank was even large enough to produce a brief firenado.
• Riptide sending itself flying into the air while attempting to self right against Defender.
• Cobalt, after losing a Curb-Stomp Battle to Fusion, very quickly redeemed itself by obliterating Ghost Raptor. No exaggeration, Ghost Raptor was four or five pieces connected by a few wires by the end.
• Glitch winning against Hydra after surviving a massive flip and taking advantage of Hydra getting stuck in the floor.
• End Game knocked Sawblaze out of the arena in 29 seconds flat. With one hit. Even Team End Game was shocked it ended so quickly.
• Cobalt continuing to prove itself by taking out the famously durable Gruff, setting it on fire in the process.
• Despite losing the end of its flipper, Hydra still incapacitates Ribbot enough to knock it out for the first upset of the tournament.
• Hypershock's dominant run in the Gigabyte Bracket in Battlebots Champions is this but it decamating Gigabyte by tearing off its shell is a sight to see.
  • To elaborate. Hyper shock has Gigabyte on the ropes throughout the match. Gigabyte is on the business end of hit after hit. It ends with Hypershock hitting Gigabyte while it’s spinning at full speed. The laws of physics decide to give one helluva finale. Gigabyte’s rapid spinning plus the final hit from Hypershock causes it to fly through the air while tearing itself apart!
• Glitch shocks the world when it not only makes it to the final match in the Rotator bracket, but literally GUTTED Rotator.

World Championship VII

• Free Shipping vs Gigabyte had a mutual one for both bots. Fittingly for a long-recurring rivalry from the days of the Robogames live events^note Where Gary Gin and John Mladenik's respective original machines (whom their two bots here are based on), Original Sin and Megabyte, would often battle, we get the spectacular sight of Free Shipping breaking off most of the self-righting pole on Gigabyte and flipping it over, which is the former's moment. At which point Gigabyte, due to still continuing to spin all the while, earns its own by balancing perfectly on what's left of the pole like a spinning top... and keep in mind, this is an approximately 250lb machine effortlessly holding itself up on such a tiny point using gyroscopic forces alone.
• Beta's come-from-behind victory against Kraken. Early on, it has traction issues on the arena floor and takes serious damage from Kraken's vertical disc; to the point where its pneumatic air tank was almost ruptured and its new axe weapon was bent 90 degrees sideways. But does it give up? No. Beta rallies in the closing stages, taking out half of Kraken's drive and disabling its spinner with one well-placed blow — incidentally, the same one that bent its axe — then keeps coming after and pummelling Kraken repeatedly with said warped weapon, ultimately winning it the decision. So much for "never firing the hammer" after that!
• Hypershock manages to literally gut Whiplash — who, let's remind everyone, was in the final two and some change years ago and has been a perennial knockout stage contender every year since its debut — and get the KO after launching it several feet into the air multiple times with its vertical spinner.
• Despite taking some damage to the forks, Claw Viper's Curb-Stomp Battle against Ribbot shows just how much the former has improved since their first appearance. Thanks to their massively improved drivetrain, floor-sticking magnets^note Which give Claw Viper an extra 200kg (440lb) of downforce on the arena floor, despite weighing the same as most other competitors. and stronger lifter/clamp setup, Claw Viper spends practically the whole bout flipping, carrying, and slamming the frog-like bot around the arena and barely lets it get the spinner into play, ultimately killing both the weapon and half its drive to win by a convincing shutout decision. Keep in mind, Ribbot was the #2 Seed in only the previous competition.
• RIPperoni getting the upset victory over End Game after getting dialled-in following its fight against Gruff, using its unique chassis design (as well as taking advantage of End Game's own floor-scraping forks) to defeat the former champion. Beware the Silly Ones, indeed.
• Props to Malice for launching the only, as of 3/9/2023, successful appeal against the judges decision: when the decision came down in favor of Valkyrie, Team Malice immediately launched an appeal on the grounds that they still had a working weapon, which worked. All other appeals thus far failed.
• The Witch Doctor versus Minotaur fight was one for the ages. Two evenly matched bots just making hit after hit. Multiple cases of sending the other across the arena, multiple cases of pushing each other around the box. The bots were gassed and barely driving by the end, but Freitas's aggressive driving managed two pins of Witch Doctor against the screws to secure the aggression and control categories for a win by Judges' Decision. And just as awesome was the display of good sportsmanship and mutual admiration by both teams for such a fantastic match.
• RIPperoni versus Black Dragon was also an amazing bout. RIPperoni was a rookie bot and a Lethal Joke Character coming in with a 3-1 record. Black Dragon had a similar record and a reputation of being Made of Iron, only suffering a knock-out once in 24 fights. The pizza was hitting the dragon hard through the whole fight, crippling its weapon and even lighting Black Dragon on fire. It was only at the very end where Black Dragon, reduced to a push-bot, managed to knock RIPperoni onto the upper deck, disabling it in the process and scoring a knock out in the last three seconds of the match. RIPperoni may have lost and been knocked out of the tournament, but there was absolutely no shame in losing in the last seconds to what is probably the most durable bot in the sport.
• Riptide finally losing in the quarterfinals can be one of these, if only to see the team at last taken down a peg or two after their unnecessary destruction of Captain Shrederator and Unsportsmanlike Gloating towards Shatter's team and others earlier in the season. It's mitigated somewhat by team captain Ethan Kurtz being away for the quarterfinal match due to illness and quarantine, and thus not being defeated in person.
• After years of competing, SawBlaze can finally claim victory as the BattleBots champion, in a very close match that came to a judge's decision. Props too to HUGE for taking SawBlaze to the limit, and for HUGE captain Jonathan Schulz for being classy enough to be a Graceful Loser, saying the judges made the right decision when they crowned SawBlaze champion.
  • Arguably, though, this was as much a win for HUGE as it was for SawBlaze: while SawBlaze has the title, HUGE proved its design was a valid counter to the current metagame. Especially poignant because Schulz considered retiring.
• Shreddit Bro's run in the Champions bracket. After a mediocre season where it went 2-2 and didn't work properly for most of the fights many assumed Skorpios would stomp on it easily, only for Shreddit Bro to not only knock it out, but it also went on to defeat Switchback and Valkyrie to claim the first spot in the Champions final.

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