Minotaur vs. Bombshell: This isn’t as bad of a matchup for Bombshell after the fight against Poison Arrow. The only difference is Minotaur is much more powerful. And there’s less ground clearance considering Poison Arrow had a lot of room under that drum. But if spinner-flipper-wedge is the most well-known rock-paper-scissors in robot combat, horizontal-drum-vertical might be the spinner subsection, and the vertical disc performed really well.

The wedge in front of Bombshell’s disc held up against the drum, but a shot around the wedge took the wheel guard on Bombshell. Weapon to weapon draws are great, but Minotaur is driven well too. The first major weapon-to-weapon swing went to… Bombshell, wait what? Minotaur got flipped right over and Bombshell was able to finally start working on the back of Minotaur, which lost drive on one side and used the power of the drum to steer. Bombshell kept attacking, though maybe not fully and it might have damaged its weapon which stopped spinning, but it didn’t matter. The wild card was in the final in one of the upsets of the tournament. Bombshell, KO 2:50

Tombstone vs. Yeti: Don’t keep electrical tape in your robot. Sound advice. Apart from that, two big spinners going at it, winner gets to take on the Swiss-army bot that took down arguably the most destructive of them all. Yeti went to add things to the lifter, Tombstone went for the longest bar they have. Also, all the points to Faruq Tauheed for that Yeti introduction. Mic drop.

There was a moment where it looked like Yeti could have taken a shot at Tombstone’s wheel, but that’s a common Ray Billings ploy where he shows his wheels and it looks like they’re for the taking and then the bar slashes across your side and bad things happen. Greg Gibson didn’t go for it, but bad things quickly happened as Yeti lost one tire and pieces of the second. This meant the drum was on the ground which meant it’s not exactly effective anymore. But on the positive for Yeti, it seemed that Tombstone’s blade stopped too. Basically this fight turned into a pushing match from two damaged robots. A war of attrition led to a judges’ decision. Tombstone, 3-0

Your final, ladies and gentlemen, a battle between David and Goliath. Bombshell, the wild card, the Swiss-army bot, the spinner killer after taking down Cobalt and Poison Arrow and Minotaur. But can it take down the biggest and baddest of those spinners, Tombstone, returning to claim the Giant Nut that eluded it last season?

But first, just like last year, it’s rumble time! And this you can actually see! And there will be others posted eventually! Maybe I’ll talk about them? I don’t know! Unfortunately there’s no eight, nine, twelve-bot rumble, but it’s better than nothing. More fights are better than fewer fights.

Bite Force vs. Witch Doctor vs. Wrecks: Three fan favorite vertical spinners. Bite Force, the defending champion (although it was a grappler then). Witch Doctor, which won hearts for its courageous fight against Tombstone. Wrecks, which has become a bit of a meme because of its… Wrecks-ness. One day it’ll move and do something, we promise!

Wrecks isn’t in the green spotlight, so that’s not a promising start. It also didn’t move out of the spotlight off the gate so I guess it’ll mostly be Bite Force and Witch Doctor. Bite Force got the upper hand and got Witch Doctor flipped. As Witch Doctor self-righted, then it bumped into the stumbling Wrecks which sheared off part of that srimech. So yay Wrecks did a thing! Witch Doctor drove around and took out Shaman, so that’s also not part of the plan. The hit of the rumble was Bite Force hitting Witch Doctor, which flipped into Wrecks, which took Witch Doctor over the rails. So Witch Doctor was out, thanks to an out of the arena by Wrecks. See, Wrecks is useful! Or at least the weapon is. The walking still isn’t there yet. Bite Force vs. Wrecks was dominated by the usual suspect, but Bite Force flipped itself over and needed to take some time to flip itself back using that weapon. Shaman, still mobile was in Bite Force’s way and was sent away like a gnat so Bite Force could focus on the matter at hand, finishing off the smoking Wrecks. Bite Force wins the rumble.

Now as we were…

Tombstone vs. Bombshell: For the Giant Nut! Tombstone with one of its many blades, but the question is “What will Bombshell use?” Probably not the axe, it wasn’t very good. The lifter, we haven’t seen it. So it would either be the vertical spinner that they used against the drums or the adjustable horizontal bar they used to great effect against Cobalt. Apparently it was designed with Tombstone in mind, so that’s the one they used. The difference is instead of the wheels they’d have to go for the weapon chain because Tombstone is not going to sit there, (nonexistent) wedge first, and let Bombshell adjust their blade. You get one chance. Better make the most of it.

Bombshell spun the wrong way and was met with pieces coming from its side. The second time it did catch the weapon but missed the chain (they did leave a mark), got spun around, and Tombstone took a wheel. Then the debilitation began in earnest and we got last year’s Ray Billings, asking for one more.

Your winner, by knockout in 53 seconds, and champion…

Tombstone! Congrats to Ray Billings and Hardcore Robotics for finally winning the BattleBots heavyweight title. In 2004 there was the BattleBots-sponsored NPC Charity Open in Minnesota, and the 340-lb. super heavyweight Tombstone won the tournament. This makes Tombstone the only robot to win a BattleBots heavyweight and super heavyweight championship, and it makes Hardcore Robotics the fourth team to win BattleBots titles in multiple weight classes (let’s say lightweights and up, so 60 lbs. or heavier, the weight classes from even the pre-TV days). That list: