First off, Louie Anderson is my Family Feud host if not just for this:

And he’s still alive, which is both surprising and heartwarming.

Second off, welcome back to the Beat! Last time out, the floor winning became a meme, Tombstone slashed SawBlaze, and Nelly the Ellybot tasted the rainbow, motherfucker. This week I get to root for the locals again as Shatter! returns, the full-body spinners return to the fray as Gigabyte takes on Minotaur and Captain Shrederator takes on Witch Doctor, and in the main event, families square off as the Ewerts of Team Whyachi take on the Vasquezes or Team Fast Electric Robots in Son of Whyachi vs. Whiplash. To the fights!

Also please note that this week’s bonus fight is now next week because July 4th fucked the Science Channel schedule. That would be Texas Twister vs. Axe Backwards which hopefully we’ll get to cover next week. We’ll cover last week’s fight next week because at this rate I’m not going to watch an episode live again, thank you Intertubes!

Black Dragon vs. Bloodsport
Black Dragon: 0-1 (L, JD 2-1 vs. Texas Twister)
Bloodsport: 1-0 (W, JD 3-0 vs. Lucky)

In my opinion, both these bots should be 1-0. Bloodsport of course beat Lucky pretty soundly, doing plenty of damage to the flipper though having some issues of its own with overheating the weapon. Black Dragon on my card won the fight 2-1, though I saw the chunk of damage that Texas Twister did to it that helped disable the weapon. Either way it’s a critical fight for the Brazilians to think about avoiding an increasingly stacked Desperado tournament. I’m going to use that line later, don’t worry. Bloodsport also got themselves a new pipe antenna, courtesy of Gigabyte.

Surprisingly Black Dragon didn’t go for the box rush, allowing both robots to spin up as it went wide. And they promptly met with a whole bunch of sparks. After that Black Dragon was smarter and actually went forward as Bloodsport had to spin back up and Bloodsport was sent upwards though it landed right-side up. Which is good because it broke the Gigabyte pipe from the impact and started rolling around. It wasn’t pulling a Mauler since it was still facing the correct way, but it was unbalanced. Which meant they had to spin up where Black Dragon pounced and got under the overhead spinner. When Bloodsport came back to the ground it wasn’t spinning, and tried to retreat, but Black Dragon kept stalking, used the Box to its advantage with its spinner, and used the wedge and the egg-beater drum to flip Bloodsport, which hit off the wall and bounced down upside-down. Since it couldn’t spin up it couldn’t even try and re-right using the momentum of the overhead bar, asking Black Dragon to hit them. So Black Dragon, being sporting, obliged. Unfortunately it didn’t flip them over but sent them ten feet sideways and off the wall as they got counted out. Black Dragon wins by KO in a bit over a minute.

Captain Shrederator vs. Witch Doctor
Captain Shrederator: 0-1 (L, KO 1:49 vs. Wan Hoo)
Witch Doctor: 1-0 (W, JD 3-0 vs. Shatter!)

One of the Florida battles! Witch Doctor vs. HyperShock would be a more specific Battle of Miami and also a fight I’d love to see; Team Logicom is based out of Ormond Beach, near Daytona Beach. Captain Shrederator did the thing it often seems to do, dominate the fight and then crap out after a hit. Meanwhile, Witch Doctor survived nearly cooking itself to win a unanimous decision against Shatter! and a future BattleBots Challenge Giant Bolt. In the distant future, the year 2000.

Witch Doctor didn’t quite rush, but Captain Shrederator retreated while Witch Doctor advanced. And retreated itself into a side. As a result Witch Doctor got a nice shot to hit Shrederator off the wall, and then a second one to phrizbee frisbee the captain around. It was definitely a bit off-balance while spinning, so Witch Doctor had another shot and Shrederator went from frisbee to pinball. Or air hockey. And every time Witch Doctor got a pop in the spinner either caught some walls or went off the Lexan. Eventually it slowed down and Witch Doctor could move in and actually flip Shrederator over. So that was it. Well there was pushing the still trying to spin itself over Shrederator to the pulverizer. And Nick Nave made a swear. Witch Doctor wins by KO in 1:09.

Jasper vs. HUGE
Jasper: 0-0
HUGE: 0-1 (L, KO 1:36 vs. Son of Whyachi)

After three fights in a row against powerful spinners, HUGE gets to finally fight not a spinner! So it has a chance. I’m not sure about the strength of Jasper’s weapon, which kinda looks like a plastic ray gun and is a hammer/lifter, I guess depending on how they angle it. I guess we’ll get the chance now, though I have no idea how it’ll get purchase on HUGE’s hugeness.

The attempt was to joust and get the wheels. Which I guess is a pretty good idea. Except HUGE, you know, wasn’t stationary, so it turned, hit Jasper, and flipped it over with the bar (yes, that is a more and more common occurrence with verticals). Jasper’s weapon works as a srimech, except HUGE hit it during self-righting and something went flying from the back. Jasper reset itself and then HUGE took some sort of weapon mounts and guards off of Jasper. So Jasper was in some peril as HUGE menaced it, being all huge and stuff, pushing it towards a wall. And it either got stuck or the push killed whatever drive was left because Jasper was waving the weapon arm to try and get something going but it was being counted out. HUGE wins by KO in under 1:30.

Gigabyte vs. Minotaur
Gigabyte: 1-0 (W, KO 1:24 vs. Chronos)
Minotaur: 0-1 (L, JD 3-0 vs. Whiplash)

Well this seems like a doozy. Gigabyte proved the stronger Beyblade full-body spinner against Chronos and it didn’t look like it had too much in the way of problems. Minotaur had issues in its fight as a heavier drum didn’t translate into the same familiar death hum, costing it against Whiplash. Once again, it’s a critical fight for the Brazilians to think about avoiding an increasingly stacked Desperado tournament. They have a different drum for this fight (it’s silver instead of gold!)

Both bots got to spin up though it looked like the drum took a second or two, but just met in the center of the arena and let the sparks fly the first couple of hits. But Minotaur was getting the worse of the exchanges and after one of the shots became a bit sluggish. But Minotaur was still hanging tough and was able to hang in there and try and pinball Gigabyte, but the big spinner was still able to take the hits and keep spinning, and spin Minotaur with its hits. Minotaur trying to “kiss them” (a sidestep from the early days of “jam up”) was surviving but wasn’t working particularly well unless it involved dislodging a panel in the drivers’ booths (nothing dangerous).

But with a minute left it looked like it finally worked as Gigabyte hit the screw holder (not the screws, but the thing that holds it) and the spin stopped. Which Minotaur spent by running away to spin up and really going up the edges of Gigabyte. We still weren’t getting full death hum from that drum, and Gigabyte could use the wedged—not sides because it’s a circle, but you know what I mean—part of its body to get under Minotaur and evade it. It went to the judges, and Gigabyte wins by unanimous decision. Last year’s runner-up is 0-2.

Mammoth vs. Uppercut
Mammoth: 1-0 (W, KO 1:36 vs. Axe Backwards)
Uppercut: 0-0

We saw Mammoth, which, I believe as the kids would say, yeeted Axe Backwards out of the arena. It almost tipped, and it didn’t look like it ever made more than one rotation at a time, but it worked dammit. We haven’t seen Uppercut, which is, say it with me, another goddamn vertical spinner. But they also have boxing robes and stuff! Not to fight with, that’s their thing. Which means we get Chris needling Kenny about uppercuts. And fuck it, I would watch Chris vs. Kenny having fighting robots to compete against each other. Robot Wars did celebrity stuff!

Uppercut nearly gyroed itself over, but that slow spinner on Mammoth meant that the front forks were vulnerable. And apparently they keep the robot upright because one shot from Uppercut toppled the giant, though it was able to re-right and stay upright using the back. Also it knocked over Uppercut’s minibots. But okay.

Mammoth was still slow as all hell so Uppercut could flank it and hit it from the side and wreck a wheel. And again topple the big bot. They asked for a re-right hit. It did not re-right them and I saw some motors and stuff get knocked out. And they still asked for a re-right hit. Uh, I don’t think it’s coming back from that one. Especially now that things are on fire during the count-out. Uppercut wins by KO in 1:05.

Wan Hoo vs. Shatter!
Wan Hoo: 1-0 (W, KO 1:49 vs. Captain Shrederator)
Shatter!: 0-1 (L, JD 3-0 vs. Witch Doctor)

So those four bots continue the do-si-do as they change dance partners on the card (between these two and the Shrederator/Witch Doctor fight). Wan Hoo didn’t do too much against Captain Shrederator but it didn’t finish gradually dying before Captain Shrederator suddenly did, so it won by KO. Shatter! lost its (hammer) head and Witch Doctor didn’t get stuck long enough for it to get counted out, so the judges rightfully went for Witch Doctor. The very shiny plastic has been replaced with other shiny plastic, with forked bits! And Adam Wrigley finally remembered to put on the sunglasses instead of leave them on his head, because the lights are bright.

Wan Hoo doesn’t need the front armor for this fight, so they put it on top. Hey, if it works use it. They are down a fork though for weight reasons

Wan Hoo guessed right which way Shatter! was going to strafe to it got the first hit though there was no tearing. The second hit drew more sparks but still nothing crazy happened. Meanwhile Shatter! hadn’t fired, clearly in the John Reid School of hammer firing. Because when it did fire it immediately buckled that top armor. First hit. It swung and missed and Wan Hoo could avoid and push a bit but the hammer could jump the Brooklyn bot off. Meanwhile Wan Hoo was starting to smoke, which was likely the weapon motor as it stopped spinning. With that Shatter! could swing at liberty and Old Rusty could nail that top armor again.

Wan Hoo drove into the corner, and that was a mistake. Hammer shots are not pins or crushes where they have to let go, so Eric Wrigley could really go to work with a direct hit and some other glancing blows until Wan Hoo spun away, losing some of that top armor. And then running away, looking like some of the control was gone from the drive and leaving tire tracks. As Shatter! chased, the hammer jump meant Wan Hoo could get under them on misses and take them to the wall, so Wan Hoo still had a shot. But not if they were taking shots as another wave of hammer shots came down on the modified armor.

The disk started slowly spinning again but so was the robot for the most part and Shatter! could keep hitting until the buzzer and Eric Wrigley dropped a Kirk Cousins “YOU LIKE THAT.” Out of all the things, no one’s made a GIF of that? Anyhoo, Shatter! wins by unanimous decision after firing its hammer 54 times in three minutes, and by my count, landing square hits on Wan Hoo’s top on 25 of those.

Main Event: Son of Whyachi vs. Whiplash
Son of Whyachi: 1-0 (W, KO 1:36 vs. HUGE)
Whiplash: 1-0 (W, JD 3-0 vs. Minotaur)

Son of Whyachi looked as lethal as ever in breaking apart HUGE’s wheel en route to the victory. Whiplash’s fight was a little grittier, a little dirtier, thanks to Minotaur’s drum not being at its fullest speed and still needing some tuning. There were still some issues with the lifter, and a motor got hot but they did enough to take the decision. I went through the family angle in the open, so no need to do that again, but Son of Whyachi’s been competing almost as long as the Vasquez brothers have been alive, if that makes you feel old. It makes me feel old!

Whiplash went for the box rush, since you can’t possibly think that letting Son of Whyachi spin up is a good idea. Unfortunately they hit a seam, so Son of Whyachi spun up more than preferred and gave a shunt to the side. The Whyachi minibot, Meddler also had a say in this early going, first bumping into Whiplash, but then getting under Son of Whyachi. The bigger bot got off, swung at Meddler which was probably in many pieces, then hit Whiplash’s plow and ripped the left side off. Whiplash still had metal there but that’s a lot less metal than it was. And also what looks like whatever mounting was there, that’s gone too.

But that gave Matt Vasquez a moment to figure it out, because you’re not going to stand up to that at full bore so better not let them get to full bore. And started rushing to slow it down, staying inside, and after slowing down those lethal hammers actually getting a lift on Son of Whyachi by the screws. They were unable to get the flywheel down but it counts for control, and damage if the screws can do anything. They tried to get it stuck in the screws but that did enough to free Son of Whyachi and continue the fight and get to spin back up and deal another spark-emitting shot.

The fallout from that hit though is that Son of Whyachi started to smoke, and it was clearly weapon-related as that crapped out. So Whiplash came in with the lifter, looking for a quick end to the fight, and got the flip they needed. That’s it, overhead spinners don’t have srimechs, or if they do that’s the exception to the rule. Whiplash wins by KO in around 1:45, and at 2-0 with this strength of schedule, looks like a safe bet to get back in the tournament to try and make another deep run.

So that does it for the week. We should be hearing from the 15 or so teams we haven’t seen fight this season, most notably Bronco which did come late. I don’t know if it’s the main event this week but we’re reportedly going to get Bronco vs. Bite Force at some point. I’m going to assume that’s a Main Event when that happens. Until it or anything else happens, see you next week!