Battlebots 1.0 Episode 6 | Beyond The Battlebox
Hello everyone and welcome to a brand spanking new edition of Beyond The Battlebox! Per usual, we are taking a deep dive into the world of 2000, a fruitful world full of...2000. On today's episode we travel to October 4th for some quarter-final action in the Heavyweight, Super Heavyweight and Lightweight brackets.
Oh, and by the way, Battlebots returned just last night so be sure to catch it however you can. Beyond The Battlebox plans to review these episodes as soon as I can find rips of the episodes or another way to take screen grabs. Until then, let's stay in the land of Stacker2 Fat Burners and LUGZ and let's get into an episode where I'm SURE CONTROVERSIAL WILL HAPPEN. Let's do it, to it.
QUARTER-FINAL ACTION
 |
| A new photo because I got sick of digging through my files for the old one. rest in rip og photo |
We start with the usual intro as Salisbury Steak delivers many adjectives. Sean calls Bil an "encyclopedia of robot combat", but Bil also didn't know that there was robot fighting in England a few weeks ago. Insert witty "lol uk fans" joke here. We waste no time jumping into our first fight, a Heavyweight fight between Voltarc and Biohazard.
Bill Nye The Science Guy runs down Voltarc's lifting arm before we jump in.
FIGHT NUMBER ONE: VOLTARC VS. BIOHAZARD
 |
| Bil Fact: Stephen Felk is a cabinet maker and believes that it helps him with robot building |
 |
| Bil Fact: Carlo's fiance lets him build without interruption |
Our first battle here is in the Heavyweight division and is between two shiny, silver lifters. Voltarc, driven by local madman Stephen Felk, defeated Bender to make it to the Quarter-Finals. Defeating Bender, of course, is a task almost as legendary as defeating Razer without Ian Lewis complaining about a gentlemen's agreement.
Having a slightly more difficult road to the Quarters is Biohazard, who had to defeat everyone's favorite suitcase Mjollnir. As you can see, truly the cream of the crop in 2000. Either way, these two are high level machines with expert drivers, and this is their first meeting.
The fight begins and Biohazard immediately gets under the nose of Voltarc. Biohazard tries to lift but Voltarc escapes the arm. Voltarc's spin move to escape the first lift opens it's back up to a second attempt from Biohazard, but Biohazard fails to get Voltarc over again. A lot of expert driving on display as Biohazard again gets under and starts charging Voltarc to the wall but I believe Biohazard hits a seam in the floor because it just stops and Voltarc not only drives off of it but also gets under Biohazard before putting it on the saws.
 |
| Yeah, I think we know where this is going |
Okay. Pause. What I want you to do is remember that last line before that photo. Voltarc puts Biohazard on the saws. Now, Battlebots (and most robotic competitions after 1999) have a rule to prevent pinning. The exact length varies but here in 1.0 the rules state that a robot has to release it's opponent after 30 seconds. Salisbury Steak explicitly mentions this at this point in the fight.
I went back on the footage and looked, Voltarc gets the first lift no more than 34 seconds into this fight. Now, you would assume that, by 1:04 into the fight, Voltarc has to let Biohazard down. This does not happen. The killsaws and the hell raisers both attempt to knock Biohazard off of Voltarc but both are unsuccessful.
 |
| Update: still here |
Over the next two and a half minutes, Voltarc genuinely takes Biohazard to every single set of saws on the floor before it goes to a judge's decision. Now comes the part where I play devil's advocate. In 1.0, the wording of the rules only explicitly prohibited pinning against the arena wall. Voltarc never put Biohazard against the wall, so the referee didn't have to force a release.
While, technically, this is legal, it is still morally wrong. We can argue morality in competition all day but at the end of it, this is a fight that, if you're new to the sport of robot combat, you change the channel and never come back afterwards. This fight is why officials are strict about pinning rules, as 2.0 introduced a revision that prevents not just wall pins but lifting pins like this one.
 |
| Update 2: ...yeah. |
This fight is infamous in the Battlebots community and is one of the shining examples of why the modern day "active weapon rule" exists. While both of these machines do have active weapons, this type of fight would never happen in modern events. A flash of controversial lightning, caught in a bottle and preserved to remind fans why things are the way they are.
I'm done ranting, this fight's over. Fuck Voltarc.
"WINNER": VOLTARC (JUDGE'S DECISION 9-0)
The crowd rightfully boos the shit out of this fight, loud enough to hear over the piped in cheers. Sean throws to Deonna with Stephen Felk, who sounds like a 9 year old trying to explain to his mom how he broke his sibling's arm. Carlo is not interviewed, presumably because he's busy throwing shit at the referees off screen.
We see Mechadon in the testing area as we go to commercial.
A random biker dude outside the venue reads the line the cameraman asked him to before we start discussing our Super Heavyweight fight between Mechadon and Rammstein. Rammstein shows it's glorious Team Loki quality as it's revealed that Rammstein's pneumatics are not functional, thus it's spike is static for this fight. (Fun Fact: Rammstein had an untelevised fight prior to this one, breaking it's pneumatics on Abattoir, a six wheeled spinning...thing that is literally impossible to explain.)
We get a builder bio on Team Sinister, the team behind the six legged death spider Mechadon.
MEET TEAM SINISTER: DENIZENS OF THE JUNKYARD
 |
| Pictured Above: Mark Setrakian, seen in his natural habitat. |
FIGHT NUMBER TWO: RAMMSTEIN VS. MECHADON
 |
| Bil Fact: Korey Kline started his robotics career at age ten, designing rocket engines |
 |
| Bil Fact: Mark Setrakian has built and puppeteered characters in recent films Men in Black and Mighty Joe Young |
Our second contest of the night is in the Super Heavyweight division and is contested between the industrial heavy metal of Rammstein and "the most famous Battlebot ever" according to Bil Dwyer, Mechadon. Rammstein is a six wheel drive, 300 pound drivetrain with a pneumatic spike on the front. As we mentioned, the pneumatic system is out for this fight, so it's a fixed spike. Pneumatics aside, Rammstein is still a devastatingly powerful machine. Team Loki has already technically won a battle this season, their Lightweight Thorn co-won the rumble last episode with Backlash.
Standing on top of his machine like a Jojo character is Mark Setrakian, modern day Battlebots engineer who designed the AXIS claw table for the Giant Nut. Next to him is Peter Abrahamson, builder of Super Heavyweight Ronin and modern day Battlebots analyst. Under him, however, is Mechadon, a 475 pound (walker weight allowance still in effect here in a pre-Whyachi era) walking spider from Hell that uses it's six legs as grabbing arms. Possibly the single coolest piece of mechanical engineering ever entered, Mechadon is not a fighting robot, but a functional sculpture made of God knows how many pistons.
The fight begins as Rammstein charges over to it. Rammstein allows Mechadon the time to show off it's walking mechanism to the crowd. Mechadon starts Ric Flair strutting over to Rammstein until Rammstein charges it hard into the arena wall. This charge has already bent the shit out of two of Mechadon's legs.
Rammstein backs off as Mechadon proceeds to contort itself and roll towards Mechadon. Rammstein gets bored of watching Mechadon turn itself into a geometrical paradox and pushes the giant spider into the arena wall. Mechadon reacts to this by turning itself into an art installation and Rammstein hits it into the wall again.
 |
| Everyone asks what is Mechadon, but nobody ever asks HOW is Mechadon |
Another hit on Mechadon gets one of it's legs caught behind the arena wall. We see one of the dozens of actuators hanging off Mechadon as Rammstein continues to pound it into the wall. Bil brings up that Mechadon isn't being counted out because "it's still dangerous." I call bullshit but whatever, I blew all my rant on the last fight.
Rammstein nails it again and Mechadon actually manages to get under Rammstein. Mechadon pivots and nearly flips Rammstein over. Pulverizer Pete gets bored and starts banging his head off the button for the hammer as the horn sounds and it's over.
WINNER: RAMMSTEIN (JUDGE'S DECISION 8-1)
A relatively meh fight following the shittiest fight in history. Bil Dwyer references David Hasselhoff and Sean throws to a Sklar. Sklar asks what the English translation of Rammstein is (it means "battering ram") and Sklar throws in a "Germans and Jews" joke.
We see the crew loading up Tentomushi as we go to commercial.
 |
| dont talk to me i angy >:( |
Back from commercial we see Chuck Pitzer finishing up Alpha Raptor and we go directly into the main event.
MAIN EVENT: ALPHA RAPTOR VS. TENTOMUSHI
 |
| Bil Fact: Alpha Raptor is built out of salvage from Chuck Pitzer's Long Beach 1999 entrant W.L.O.W. (also called Whiplash) |
 |
| Bil Fact: Tentomushi's shell is made out of a sandbox, and Lisa Winter has brought three more just in case of damage |
The final fight of the night is a Lightweight quarter-final battle between Alpha Raptor and Tentomushi. Alpha Raptor is built by Chuck Pitzer of Team Raptor, and is the first in a long lineage of Raptor machines (although the previously aforementioned W.L.O.W. isn't too much different than Alpha Raptor.) Alpha Raptor is a four wheel drive box with a spiked lifting arm. Nowadays, you can spot Chuck with Ghost Raptor in modern Battlebots. Here, Alpha Raptor may possibly be the quickest Lightweight in the field, so it will need to use it's speed to outdrive that massive Lightweight across the Box.
And across said Box is said massive Lightweight. Tentomushi (Japanese for "ladybug") has already been seen once, last episode fighting in the Lightweight rumble. Tentomushi has a giant plastic sandbox lid with a saw arm under it (kinda like Skorpios in modern Battlebots.) The idea is that the lid will "swallow" the other bot and trap it as the saw arm does damage. Driver Lisa Winter is a judge nowadays, but back then, she was one of a team of four entering in competition. (One of Tentomushi's teammates, Aggressive Polygon, was also in last week's rumble.)
The horn sounds and Alpha Raptor calls upon the future spirit of Will Bales, casting himself forward for a ZOOM across the floor. Unfortunately for it, Pete Lambertson can see the future and has psychic connections in the afterlife, allowing him to foretell the incoming box rush and opens a hell raiser, causing Alpha Raptor to slam dunk itself face first into the back of the hell raiser at full speed.
Tentomushi laughs it's ass off and Alpha Raptor, salty that it just got it's ass beat by the floor, runs over and shoves it's claw down Tentomushi's throat. Tentomushi attempts to smother Alpha Raptor but the Raptor uses it's arm to keep the lid open while it drives the ladybug around the floor.
 |
| idk why, but whenever I see Tentomushi with it's lid up, all I hear is it laughing like Patrick from Spongebob |
Alpha Raptor attempts to get around the back of Tentomushi, but the giant ladybug is too big, giving it plenty of time to turn around and meet Alpha Raptor. Alpha Raptor decides it's opponent is useless and throws itself down Tentomushi's throat, wedging it entirely across the floor and blowing the antennae off of Tentomushi.
Tentomushi rushes over to Alpha Raptor and the two get locked together before Tentomushi finally gets a decent grab on the Raptor. Unfortunately for Tentomushi, Alpha Raptor's drive train is superior, allowing it to drag Tentomushi into the kill saws, which slices through the ladybug. Alpha Raptor rushes Tentomushi into the saws again.
Getting it's nuts cut off is enough ti wake Tentomushi up and it floors it away from Alpha Raptor. Tentomushi returns to the Raptor, trying to swallow Raptor again, but gets a face full of spikes for it's trouble. Alpha Raptor assists by lifting Tentomushi's face into the glass as time runs out and Lisa looks like she's trying to use her own psychic powers to turn Chuck Pitzer's spine into Mechadon at the end of the last fight.
 |
| o hullo dere O.O |
WINNER: ALPHA RAPTOR (JUDGE'S DECISION 7-2)
Coming back from commercial, we go to a Sklar congratulating Lisa on losing gracefully, before Chuck Pitzer uses every possible violence based verb about a fourteen year old girl he can without sounding like he wants Chris Hansen to come to his house. The Hit of the Week is GODDAMN FUCKING VOLTARC BEING A PIECE OF SHIT I SWEAR TO THE JESUS I'LL BREAK IT'S ASS-
Thank you for taking time out of yet another Friday to come and enjoy another entry of Beyond The Battlebox. It was certainly a happening as always and we'll be back next week with more Quarter-Finals. Remember to watch the new season of Battlebots when possible so this sport we love can live forever. Also, brand new, check us out on Facebook at @BeyondTheBattlebox.
Until next time, farewell.
Comments
Post a Comment