BattleBots S7: Unaired Rumbles

Season 7 may officially be “over” as far as ABC is concerned, but that’s just a technicality; there’s still some content we haven’t seen yet and that means there’s still an excuse for me to roll out the carpet for some second-rate jokes that’ll have you punching your flatscreen monitor and sending me hateful comments about how much I suck. Six rumbles were actually held at the most recent BattleBots event, however only one of them — the “Crowd Favorites” rumble — made it to air. Fifteen other robots still battled it out and the fine folks at BattleBots HQ announced that they’d be posting the unaired rumbles on their official YouTube channels for everyone to enjoy.

Aren’t these guys literally just the best? Like, for real. Back in the day the closest we got in the way of extra unaired footage was some random 10-15 second cuts of season two fights on the official BattleBots website with promises of more that ultimately were never delivered on. This season we’ve literally been given all there was and that is frankly fucking awesome. Thank you, BattleBots.

Now then, I’ll quit padding this intro so we can check out the five additional rumbles for this season’s last foray into the Battlebox…

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“LEGENDS” RUMBLE

Up first is the “Legends” rumble, named as such because it features three robots each from a team who’s been in the sport longer than the ABC seasons have been around. Donald Hutson’s Lock-Jaw is introduced first in the red square, a robot with piss poor luck after back to back losses this season to Yeti and Brutus. Yeti straight up tore the shit out of Lock-Jaw and threw it around the arena, however its fight against Brutus was a bit more calculated. Unfortunately, Donald didn’t factor his PRIMARY WEAPON into that equation and he lost the battle after doing nothing more than putting his robot’s wedged ass in Brutus’ face. There’s not much that’s different about Lock-Jaw for this fight as the robot isn’t really sporting any special attachments to speak of; this is just Lock-Jaw in its standard configuration for one last hurrah now that the season is over.

Speaking of back to back losses, Ghost Raptor is in the blue square. After a freak performance last year that ultimately led the robot to the semifinals this machine has earned a mixed reputation and the distinct honor of nobody knowing what the fuck to do with this thing. Ghost Raptor’s weapon certainly looks menacing, however after two seasons of seeing the sabertooth cat fight like the world’s deadliest tumbleweed I think we’re all in unanimous understanding that the robot is a fucking joke with more moving pieces than an ambitious K’Nex model you call it quits on halfway through. Like Lock-Jaw, Ghost Raptor also has no significant attachments to speak of since its helicopter blade of the apocalypse didn’t snap in half in one blow this year. All that bullshit about “train mode” and the De-Icer was nonsense that Chuck pulled out of his ass to make his robot look like it had an active weapon so the officials wouldn’t disqualify it.

You’re probably expecting the third robot in this rumble to also not have any “special attachments”, however since the third robot in this rumble happens to be Stinger you’d be hilariously incorrect. This robot has more mismatched attachments and configurations than a Chinese bootleg Transformer. As such, Stinger enters this rumble sporting only four of its six wheels to provide the additional weight needed for that giant goddamned sheet of metal. Also making a special guest appearance this rumble is the recipient of this year’s Giant Washer for “Worst Minibot”, Stinger’s spicy boy. Out of the three robots in this rumble Stinger is the only one with a victory this year since it burned Nightmare’s nuts and threw the robot onto its back for a brutal KO. On the other hand however, Stinger lost its follow-up fight with Mega Tento which I’d have to say warrants some shame points for the most embarrassing loss of the season. Ghost Raptor had its chassis snapped it two by Son of Whyachi and Lock-Jaw was decimated by Yeti, you lost to a fucking sandbox.

So I guess Stinger also tried to outfit its wheels with rubber treads or something because within literally two seconds of this rumble starting the entire ring of tread from at least two of them have come off without any intervention needed from the other bots in the rumble whatsoever. You know glue is a thing, right? I mean, you can’t just fit some rings around your wheels and assume that they’ll be held together by honest intentions and hopeful dreams and shit. Life isn’t a Disney movie. Stinger’s wheels fall apart as Lock-Jaw tries to gain purchase on the yellow robot, meanwhile Ghost Raptor gets its blade spinning and it starts making contact with the ground and causes the robot to spin out of control. For fuck’s sake, at least hit something first. The camera pans away from Ghost Raptor because no one wants to look at it but if you listen carefully you’ll hear the clang as the robot drives itself into the goddamned wall.

Lock-Jaw pries off one of Stinger’s remaining wheel treads while Stinger’s spicy boy finally gets its flamethrower working and proceeds to do jack shit with it. Ghost Raptor manages to land a glancing blow on Stinger while still looking like the ricketiest piece of shit in the world which results in Stinger easily putting the cat into the wall, followed by Lock-Jaw seizing the moment and putting Stinger into the screws before taking a hit from Ghost Raptor as well. The hit doesn’t faze Lock-Jaw at all because Ghost Raptor’s weapon is a fucking joke but that doesn’t stop Chuck’s robot from spazzing out and doing its best impression of a broken paint mixer. Somewhere in this mess Stinger has managed to get one of its wheel bands wrapped around Lock-Jaw’s mouth like it’s an alligator or something. While cool, this doesn’t solve anything because Lock-Jaw’s spring-loaded clamp easily rips through the rubber and tosses Stinger in the air.

Ghost Raptor seems to have broken down in the corner where Stinger left it; if you watched closely you may have seen a drive chain come off of the robot a bit earlier in the fight, presumably because [insensitive Parkinson’s joke] caused it to snap apart. Stinger manages to lose a wheel but I can’t quite figure out if this is due to anything Ghost Raptor has done. Part of me wants to say “no” just to be a dick, but after reviewing the fight I can’t see a single instance of Stinger actually getting hit on the wheel it lost so I’m just assuming Matt ripped it apart himself by driving like a fucking maniac. Lock-Jaw also gets a fucked up tire, but unlike Stinger this one is due to Ghost Raptor’s blade which finally managed to fucking do something for once. Good job man, it only took like seven fucking battles.

With Ghost Raptor mostly disabled this fight becomes a battle between Stinger and Lock-Jaw, the latter of which has just run over the spicy boy and killed it. With Stinger missing a front wheel it once again has lost the ability to properly use its lifting wedge and because its ground clearance is all screwed up Lock-Jaw is now easily able to get underneath its opponent and throw it around. Realizing this isn’t a battle he’s going to win, Matt retreats and instead gets some easy hits in on Ghost Raptor who is still back there in the corner even though we haven’t been paying attention to it. Lock-Jaw is busy having the battle it wanted to have against Yeti and Brutus by flipping Stinger around and biting it on the ass, I’m not even certain Donald Hutson was aware of the fact that he ultimately flipped Stinger on top of its minibot and crushed the fucking thing before the timer ran out.

WINNER: Lock-Jaw, Judges’ Decision

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“DAUGHTERS” RUMBLE

Okay, first things first I didn’t name this rumble or anything. This was all the producers’ doing. It’s a neat idea for a theme I guess, Girl Power and all that. I’m assuming Zoe was too grown up for this one so that’s why we’ve got Bad Kitty instead, a Team Think Tank robot formerly known as VDD that ended up getting demolished by a glorified fucking skate ramp named Black Ice. Bad Kitty’s main weapon is its vertical cutting disc which, if it hits you, will absolutely leave a mark. Unfortunately, Bad Kitty failed to land even a single blow in its qualification rumble, not even on Skorpios who fucked itself on the screws. I remember VDD from ye olden days and I’m hoping this is the battle where we can finally see some of the good shit. For this rumble Bad Kitty is being driven by Katie Mason (who formerly operated the heavyweight’s absent minibot) because otherwise it’d be ineligible for this event.

Overdrive is a robot I think a lot of fans want to like but it just lacks that old school Team Coolrobots “charm” that a lot of us saw in Minion and Overkill. Maybe it has something to do with the gaudy blue and fucking orange paint job, but honestly if you ask me most of the Coolrobot’s charm was in how “industrial” the robots looked. Sort of. I say that but like, what the fuck was Overkill supposed to be? Same with Toe Crusher. And Uppercut. And Knee Breaker. You get the point, and in hindsight mine was wrong. Basically, Overdrive isn’t Minion and as such I don’t really like it. Overdrive’s weapon is literally just a chunk of steel billet spinning at umpteen million miles per hour and since Christian Carlberg has a daughter named Carissa that means his robot met the qualification requirements for this battle. Yay.

Finally over in the green “square” is this rumble’s obligatory “not as shitty as the rest of the robots” entry, The Ringmaster. While the other two robots in this rumble are being driven by young girls as a gimmick, Ringmaster has been driven by Hannah Rucker since the start of the tournament meaning it’s the only competitor in the field that isn’t there for emotional appeal. The Ringmaster had a difficult run this year due to the fact that its weapon system never quite worked as intended. Sure, it basically got a one-hit KO over Ultimo Destructo but I mean come the fuck on, I’m 99% certain even fucking Ghost Raptor would’ve come out ahead in that situation. Former champion Bite Force ended up killing off Hannah’s robot early on which allowed her team to repair the robot and better understand what broke so they could fix it for this rumble. Hopefully.

Right off the bat Ringmaster starts spinning and making that metallic grinding noise that I’m certain Hal Rucker said it wasn’t supposed to make, so my ambitions for this robot are pretty much already in the shitter. Not wanting to be the one to attack the full body spinner, Bad Kitty and Overdrive instead mingle with each other wherein Bad Kitty comes out ahead by clipping off one of Overdrive’s orange wedges and flipping the robot over. Not really VDD-level damage, but an acceptable start. Bad Kitty’s chassis gets caught up on one of Overdrive’s wheels and ends up getting toppled over. This occurs right as Hannah figures out which way is forward on her incomprehensible mess of a robot and swerves around to strike Bad Kitty on its right drive pod ripping a giant chunk and a drive belt out of it. As I’m sure you’ve probably guessed by this point, Bad Kitty has been knocked out in a single fucking hit.

This leaves only Overdrive as a potential threat and since it’s still on its back and its weapon appears to already be dead again I guess that threat has preemptively been neutralized. Overdrive cruises over to Ringmaster and just stops to let Hannah get a free hit. I can’t even tell you what flew off of Overdrive to make such a loud noise, but Ringmaster pretty much gets another one-hit KO because much like Bad Kitty the hit pretty much destroys Overdrive’s right wheel and rips all of the foam out of it. More importantly this hit has also finally disabled Ringmaster’s spinning blade, however even though Overdrive is still able to drift around this apparently doesn’t count as “controlled movement” so the referee counts it out. (I didn’t want to see two minutes of half-dead robots bumping into each other either. Thanks guys.)

WINNER: The Ringmaster, KO

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“BATTLE OF MIT” RUMBLE

This is the last rumble named by the producers and man is this one a doozy. “The Battle for MIT”, aka “applying for scholarships in high school all over again”. I know what you’re thinking, too. There should be four robots in this rumble since the Overhaul team broke up into four separate teams. Yeah, well Tombstone kind of killed Brutus so that pretty much sealed the deal on this one. Speaking of Overhaul, it’s the first robot introduced in this rumble. We all know this robot by now; built by a guy who knows a ton about robotics and engineering except for how to apply it to a robot that can actually win a fight. When he’s not watching anime in the pits, builder Charles Guan loves him some Internet memes. Faruq unfortunately does not share this love of memery because he botches Overhaul’s introduction and nobody cares enough to do a second take. Apparently that’s something you can’t has.

It’s a little late to be introducing brand new robots, but lo and fucking behold we’ve got a newbie that’s just now making its season debut… weeks after the season itself has already ended. Road Rash won the Giant Washer award for “Worst MIT Robot” because it failed to qualify for the event, however since it’s from MIT — and because Brutus has been incarcerated — Road Rash finally gets its time to shine. Road Rash’s main weapon has two stages to it. The first stage is a set of grappling jaws to ensnare opponents with while the second stage is a retractable set of saw blades that come out and presumably rip up and shred other bots. Also of note is Road Rash’s unique magnetic drive system which isn’t in use for this fight because it didn’t work properly so the team went back to this crazy tried and true thing called “wheels”.

Sawblaze is the last robot participating in this rumble. You might be thinking you’ve seen this robot before, but you’d be wrong. That was Skorpios. Sawblaze is a marginally less shitty Skorpios, a title which it has earned by having not knocked itself out on the arena hazards. Yet. Sawblaze lost its only battle this year to Razorback after Sawblaze’s saw met weapon-to-weapon with Razorback’s drum and immediately lost all of its teeth. Sawblaze spent most of the fight wedging and shoving Razorback around, but because this wasn’t “aggression with a PRIMARY WEAPON” Sawblaze was sent back to MIT and told not to come back next year unless they brought a weapon that wasn’t just the pussiest thing in the world. There’s also a flamethrower inside of Sawblaze’s decorative dragon head, but I think that might just be for show because it doesn’t seem to get deployed very often. Or even work, for that matter.

My eyes are on Road Rash for this rumble because I like seeing new bots even if they’re premiering long past the point where it makes a goddamned difference. Road Rash makes its arena debut by flooring it toward Overhaul and then something explodes. God damn, no wonder they gave this robot the Pete Best treatment. Holy shit. Sawblaze gets a small nibble in on Road Rash before Overhaul is able to ride over and flip the thing onto its back effectively ending its participation for this battle. I’m assuming Road Rash is slightly more dangerous than we’ve been led to believe, because when Sawblaze accidentally clips the robot while driving past it something causes an entire fucking chunk of its right wheel to come off. I’d love to know what did that, too bad Road Rash can’t self right and instead is just flipping its jaws back and forth like an upturned beetle.

Overhaul tries to get a grapple on Road Rash but ends up catching fire somehow. Sawblaze seizes the opportunity to attack and starts hammering on Overhaul with its articulated saw, presumably because the saw has stopped working. Again. Keep your eyes peeled for all the flammable vapor that Sawblaze starts throwing up but is unable to light, plus the fact that Sawblaze’s left wheel has apparently come loose on its hub. MIT, ladies and gentlemen. Road Rash takes some time to shoot sparks at Overhaul, which understandably appears to do absolutely nothing, while Sawblaze gets its wedge stuck in a seam on the Battlebox floor. I also have no idea what it was that burnt up on Overhaul because as far as I can tell everything seems to still “work”, and I use that term probably the loosest I ever have before.

Charles makes a sweet jump over Sawblaze before taking an inordinate amount of damage from the Killsaws this season. Sawblaze manages to light its flamethrower after what feels like an hour and manages to do nothing except burn the hazards with it. Road Rash responds by shooting out more sparks presumably to signal to everyone that it’s not totally dead yet. Again after what feels like an eternity Sawblaze’s weapon has come back from the dead and starts throwing mad aluminum sparks off of the top of Overhaul’s clamp. It doesn’t appear to be doing any real damage, but I’m assuming this is something that the judges are going to shit themselves over.

The sudden operation of Sawblaze’s weapon (and its subsequent re-sticking on the same jacked up part of the arena floor as before) seems to have spooked Overhaul because for no real reason it cruises over to seemingly try and bring Road Rash back into this rumble. Sawblaze writes a thesis about why that’s a bad move and by “thesis” I actually mean “literally visibly cutting into one of the pointy bits on Overhaul’s weapon”. Road Rash almost manages to get back into the fight, but just as it seems like the battle is turning around in their favor the match ends. I honestly can’t even evaluate Road Rash’s performance in this rumble because there’s absolutely nothing to go by. The robot literally just blew up and got flipped over. I mean, shit not even Mohawk got flipped over after shitting itself. Congratulations I guess, you managed to build something worse than Team Loki.

WINNER: Sawblaze, Judges’ Decision

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“ROUND 1 ELIMINATIONS” RUMBLE #1

These next two rumbles don’t have official names but their participants all share in common the fact that they lost their first rounds and did not receive wildcards. I’m guessing these rumbles were set up so that we could get a better look at the bots in action, because honestly that’s a pretty cool idea. Not quite a second chance, more like a “second rate” second chance for all the little robots that couldn’t. Up first is Deathroll, one of my personal favorites this year. You may recall this robot being absolutely obliterated by the sheer force of American democracy in the form of Captain Shrederator. Unable to handle our freedoms, the alligator was ripped apart piece by piece until its weapon motor was literally spitting out fucking fire as it fruitlessly tried to continue to battle. Shrederator ripped apart this robot’s head, tail, and part of its drive system. Look at it now, though. Can’t even tell the difference!

Bucktooth Burl caught a lot of flack this season because people saw it as a shitty robot. I mean, I’m not going to argue with you there, but I feel like there’s at least something this robot can do that we haven’t seen before. You know, especially if its fucking weapon worked this time around. After an embarrassing loss to Chrome Fly this team of actual Canadians (sorry, Rob Masek) had ample time to have a good long think about their robot over some slightly overpriced but still pretty good food truck grub. Bucktooth Burl’s weapon, which we still really haven’t seen yet, is a vertical drum with some extremely pronounced teeth. Basically this robot is a crappier version of Minotaur and Poison Arrow; on the hierarchy of drum bots, Bucktooth Burl is somewhere else on another graphic altogether.

No, that’s not Sawblaze again. This time it’s Skorpios. I know, it’s confusing because they’re both pretty much the same robot. That’s the joke, and I’m glad I get to retire it after this battle. Skorpios is the robot that everyone (mostly me) has given shit about for knocking itself out within seconds of starting its debut match. Its opponents were Bad Kitty and fucking Black Ice. I’m not saying that’s a battle that would’ve been an easy win for Skorpios, but I mean that’s kind of a best case scenario when you get drawn to fight two opponents at the same time. Now, Skorpios has to contend with two vertical spinners in the form of Deathroll and Bucktooth Burl. You done fucked up, all you had to do was not run into the screws during your first rumble.

The battle begins and right away the goddamned Hellraisers just show up. Again, I thought they had gotten rid of these fucking things because this is literally the first time they’ve shown up this season, and this season is already over. And here’s the thing, the Hellraisers don’t just fart once like they did last season during Bite Force’s match against Overhaul. No, they just won’t settle the fuck down because all three robots are just getting jostled the fuck around almost like the hazard operator was like “oh shit we forgot to plug these hazards in the whole season, better dial their sensitivity settings up to 11 to make up for it”. Bucktooth Burl actually lands the first hit of the rumble and takes a bite out of Deathroll’s tail in between getting fucked by the ramps. Skorpios follows up with a similar attack and actually rips the goddamned steel articulation cord out of Deathroll’s tail, killing its use as a defensive mechanism.

We’re just seconds into this match and it’s already one of the most brutal rumbles of the season. Skorpios wastes no time digging its blade down into Bucktooth Burl’s wheels and rips a ring of tread clean off, damage which appears to disable the robot completely, before maneuvering around behind the beaver and eating it out. Yeah, that joke was going to be made at some point during this rumble. Chris Rose isn’t here to make it so I guess I’ve gotta take that one for the team. Bucktooth Burl and Skorpios seem to be teaming up on my bae, because Burl lands in a solid blow to Deathroll’s left drive wheels and Skorpios comes in and tears off the robot’s decorative crocodile head. The two heavyweights butt heads in the corner which ends up sending Deathroll onto the arena spike wall and gets it high centered there. Also rising are my salt levels because Deathroll just got taken out by two of the shittiest robots in the field.

Skorpios decides to do its best impression of Sawblaze and drops its saw down onto Bucktooth Burl’s drum which instantly turns it into a fucking pretzel. Maybe they are the same robot after all. Hilariously, Skorpios makes an immediate bee line for Deathroll to try and bring the crocodile back into this match now that its stupid saw blade has been shredded like they were committing tax fraud. This plan fails because Bucktooth Burl takes notice of it and ends up slamming into Deathroll head-on and flips it over, further fucking the Aussies over and probably starting some sort of international conflict. Bucktooth Burl starts visibly having some control issues however, which affords Skorpios some easy aggression points, or whatever it is the team ends up scoring without using their busted up saw blade. “Nothing”, I think is the official ruling on that.

This is basically Bucktooth Burl’s fight to win — something I never thought I’d ever say — but it seems that something important inside of it has shit the bed and the robot has spontaneously died. The refs count out Bucktooth Burl and Skorpios claims victory even though its weapon disc has been folded up more times than fucking Damascus steel.

WINNER: Skorpios, KO

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“ROUND 1 ELIMINATIONS” RUMBLE #2

The second group of “holy shit what were you people even thinking” robots starts off with Splatter, a robot from Team Fast Electric Robots that actually showed up to last year’s event but did not compete. Splatter was still rebuilt and brought back this year because I assume it just fell apart on its own after sitting in a garage for a year. Splatter’s weapon is a lifting arm combined with a vertical spinning disc because why the hell not. Actually, “why the hell not” aptly describes all of the robots in this goddamned rumble. Splatter managed to lose to Warrior Clan this season, and I’ll go ahead and end this sentence right here so you can finish cringing. Splatter’s main issue is that its weapon just didn’t fucking work. I don’t really know how effective a “lifting arm with a spinning vertical blade stapled onto it” would be, but if it’s not doing a goddamned thing then I can safely say “zero”. Here’s to hoping that they managed to fix at least that.

Disk O’Inferno is sitting pretty with two Giant Washers from this season as well as being the robot that started the still-running argument regarding PRIMARY WEAPONS. Because he does not give a fuck, former champion Jason Bardis has decided to give his team a 70’s disco motif and brought in a machine named after a popular disco song and painted like a literal goddamned dance floor. I swear to fucking god all this thing is missing is a “Have you played Atari today?” bumper sticker and a pet rock and he’d complete the fucking package. Disk O’Inferno’s weapon is a large horizontal spinning disc and also features a self-righting wedge that doubles as a lifting arm. Overall, if I had to describe this robot in as few words as possible I’d say “Gay HypnoDisc”. Disk O’Inferno also lost to Chomp this season. Mercifully, it wasn’t the only casualty so Jason isn’t alone in the Cool Cuck Club.

The last robot in this season’s last rumble is Rotator, a robot that I personally was hoping would fare better than it did. Rotator’s design features two horizontal blades, one in the front and one in the back, each mounted in such a way that the robot runs identically no matter if it’s been flipped. Rotator is objectively better than last season’s Counter Revolution, because I know some of you are thinking “how come you like this robot when it’s almost exactly like it”. The thing here is Rotator’s weapons are going to kick the robot back parallel to the floor so the robot can actually spin around in place and strike multiple times. Counter Revolution gets forced downward with each hit and because it has vertical discs it sucks at turning due to the gyroscopic forces they create. Chump. Anyways Rotator was sunk in a single blow by Witch Doctor wherein we didn’t get to see its weapons do anything except stop, so this is almost like a brand new robot again.

Rotator draws first blood by making contact with Disk O’Inferno’s lifting wedge landing a hit that sends both robots flying. Somehow Disk O’Inferno seems to be fine while Rotator’s fucking disc is already broken. Super. Splatter comes in for some sloppy seconds, manages to lift Rotator, and promptly gets its side shredded by Rotator’s only working disc. Jason Bardis seems to know who’s the most dangerous robot in this rumble because he’s not letting up on Rotator and rams the spinner into the screws. He lines up for another blow but ends up letting Rotator ride up atop his robot and clip off its disc’s only weapon tooth. Great, now Disk O’Inferno is reduced to only using its rear lifting wedge. Again. We all know how well this one turned out so I guess I’m going to preemptively say goodbye to Disk O’Inferno. It was a good run, hope you come back next year.

The preemptive salutation seems to have been spot-on because Splatter topples Disk O’Inferno over and the robot starts smoking. As much as you all probably want me to, I’m not going to quote the actual “Disco Inferno” song. Normally I’d expect Disk O’Inferno to flip itself right back over but I’m assuming the smoke is something related to the lifting wedge since it’s been taking all of the punishment thus far and the robot has effectively died. Something something disco’s dead. Rotator’s plan of attack seems to have shifted from being aggressive to spinning its only working disc while the robot itself spins around as well, a plan which doesn’t work because Splatter turns it up and onto the wall almost knocking out both robots just seconds apart. This is clearly Splatter’s fight to win, but for some reason the team goes and fucks off across the arena to try and flip Disk O’Inferno back over like that’s going to do fucking anything.

All this does is allow Rotator to get its one working disc spinning full blast so it can once more rip into Splatter’s side and blow its left wheel to fucking bits. Splatter retreats again to try and flip Disk O’Inferno over, this time out of abject horror and not casual boredom. Disk O’Inferno gets righted just in time for Rotator to come in and make the damage even on Splatter’s other side turning the robot into what looks like a mess of housing insulation that’s become sentient. Obviously Splatter’s plan is for Disk O’Inferno to go take some damage from Rotator, but Jason’s not having any of that because he’s not a fucking idiot. Instead, Disk O’Inferno starts hammering on Splatter with what’s left of its lifting wedge while Rotator takes some pot shots of its own, one of which visibly breaks the goddamned Killsaws.

Killing the hazards seems to have finally broken Rotator’s other disc as neither one appears to be operational now. Additionally, Disk O’Inferno isn’t able to get is bearings and drive straight because the arena is full of so much fucking debris thanks to Splatter being built out of recycled newspaper or whatever the fuck. Disk O’Inferno randomly starts smoking again, likely because a piece ripped from Splatter’s ass got lodged somewhere it shouldn’t have. All three robots spend the rest of the battle spinning around and dancing like the only three attendees at a 70 year high school reunion, an embarrassing display which is gracefully cut short by the fight clock running out.

WINNER: Rotator, Judges’ Decision

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With this article, the book of BattleBots Update has finally closed on season seven. I got nothing else. After providing an event report, coverage on each episode, a “What Got Cut” special, this article about the unaired rumbles, and some Giant Washers for good measure I’m all out of ideas. That’s a good thing because there’s still the new Robot Wars to get into as well as tons of other robot combat content from around the world. Yeah, this website will eventually go international beyond just Europe. China’s got some robot action going on, as does Russia, and we can’t forget whatever the fuck Korea has.

Thank you for checking out my coverage on the new BattleBots season, I hope it has been as much fun for you to read as it’s been for me to produce. If you’re only here for BattleBots and BattleBots only, that’s okay. There’s the classic Comedy Central era of the show that I’m still going to get back into, but it would be cool if you also took a look at what else is on deck. You can be the first to know by following BattleBots Update on Facebook. Additionally, if you’ve had fun this season the tip jar is always open (most folks seem to wait until the season is over before donating).

– Draco