Yeah, I don’t have one. Writing a requiem movement does that… (it’s also part of why this is late because I was zapped.)

Welcome back to the Beat! Last time we saw more sparks than at a Spyro the Dragon convention, thanks to Valkyrie and Rotator; Malice did the thing; and also explosions. Especially explosions.

This week doesn’t quite have that. But there are still some pretty good fights even if the only one that went to a JD was pretty much a done deal. Onto the fights!

Axe Backwards vs. Captain Shrederator
Axe Backwards: 0-1 (L, KO 1:15 vs. Malice)
Captain Shrederator: 0-1 (L, KO 2:20 vs. Lock-Jaw)
Ah yes, the battle of neither of these robots seem to work right. Or, as Brian Nave put it, “It’s gonna be a race to see who catches on fire first.” He also called it the curse of the Florida Man, but I’d say at this point that’s more the Miami Bot Mafia (Witch Doctor, Rotator, and Hypershock)—Kraken and Gruff have wins, and they’re from Florida too!

Also noteworthy, no axes on Axe Backwards. Instead it’s got a rear wedge to try and tank Captain Shrederator’s blows. Which makes sense because the full-body spinner has predominantly broken itself over the years. It’ll be a matchup of controlling the center of the arena—Captain Shrederator wants it to stay away from the sides, while Axe Backwards would keep Shrederator by the walls so it could pinball.

Both bots let the other spin up at the beginning, rather than Axe Backwards rushing with that rear wedge. It looked like Kurt Durjan and crew wanted the captain to come to them, and both bots were sent to dangerous for them places. For Shrederator it hit the wall/screws, for Axe Backwards it looked like they’d be sent bouncing into the hazard. But both bots survived the first major exchange and spun back up, as Axe Backwards returned to have the wedge face front for the next Shrederator attack. It worked as the shell spinner kicked off the wedge upwards, but right back onto Axe Backwards so both bots took some brunt of the punishment. It seemed that Axe Backwards had the spacing better though as Captain Shrederator wasn’t to full speed and had to take evasive action to allow it time to spin back up.

The wedge was holding up well but Shrederator was starting to hit the side more, sending Axe Backwards spiraling instead. This gave Shrederator a chance to start going for Axe Backwards’s sides, and with it the wheels. If one of those wheels went the fight would be over. Even so, there was damage to them because you could see the diminished mobility from the full-body drum, and Brian Nave could get just a bit more cheeky trying to sidestep the wedge and go for the tasty bits. A carom off the wall from one of those glancing shots actually gave Captain Shrederator the angle to flank around the hobbling Axe Backwards and take off the left wheel. “Aaaand the fight is over,” stated Kenny Florian, and he’d be right. Captain Shrederator gets the win by KO in 1:58 and breaks an 8 fight losing streak.

And also its brake. The switch to stop the spinning failed, so everyone had to wait for it to stop spinning before the robot could be safely carted back to the pits. According to BattleBots’ Twitter page, this took 40 minutes. Welp, it almost went perfectly to plan.

P1 vs. Copperhead
P1: 1-0 (W, KO vs. Chronos)
Copperhead: 1-0 (W, KO 1:12 vs. Gigabyte)
Hey everyone, P1’s back! Do you remember P1, the racecar-themed front-hinge flipper from last year? You don’t? Because it wasn’t in any televised fights? Well, P1’s a front-hinge flipper (think Firestorm from classic Robot Wars) with a racecar theme (this year with a take on the famous Gulf livery). It’s 1-0 on the year having beaten Chronos in an untelevised fight. Yes, apparently there were untelevised fights. The time has not been shown on the BattleBots site.

Copperhead also took on a spinner, but that’s about where the similarities end, as it was fresh off de-shelling Gigabyte.

P1 did not box rush. I don’t know if this was traction or drive or what, considering the robot turned to the side, but you have a big drum spinner, you have a wedge, you have a flipper, I can’t say I think this is a great idea.

Five seconds later they made contact and P1 got a good six feet in the air and something came off of it. Not enough to kill it though as P1 made a death-or-glory charge.

It was death. Via backflip, so pretty cool death. The wedge was unhinged on one side and it wasn’t moving. I’d say the good news is it lasted longer than Gigabyte, but… Copperhead wins by KO in 38 seconds. So good news, it lasted a little over half as long as Gigabyte? That doesn’t sound reassuring at all.

Copperhead moves to 2-0 and Zach Goff mentions that Ua!rrior and he squared off all the time in lightweights and he usually came out on top, so he was calling out Black Dragon. That fight is confirmed to happen, by the way, so look for it.

Beta vs. Rusty
Beta: 1-0 (W, JD 2-1 vs. Rotator)
Rusty: 1-0 (W, KO 2:12 vs. Sporkinok)
Well, this has the potential to get really ugly. Because everyone loves Rusty, the junkyard bot that has become this season’s meme. It even won its first fight!

Everyone (except Victor Soto) loves Beta too. Or at least they love John Reid. We are still waiting for a good hit after zero in the Rotator fight. But that was a driving masterclass. Now to see the fancy new pneumatic hammer, because there’s no way they don’t fire it here, right?

Well, Beta took Rusty almost immediately to the rails… no hammer. And just generally started by running circles around Rusty. Rusty actually fired his hammer first. Sure, it missed but that’s one more fire than Beta. But the front forks started to get stuck in the floor which made Rusty’s rear a juicy target. Finally we get a good hit from John Reid and co.! It basically made whatever the rear armor on Rusty is look like aluminum foil. The second one missed the armor but hit the treads so it probably wasn’t pleasant.

As for Rusty it was stuck on itself and needed to use its hammer to unstick. So he wasn’t doing great. But the unstick wasn’t working. I think Beta though Rusty was stuck on the rails and tried to unstick to continue the fight, but to no avail. Beta wins by KO in 1:49 and moves to 2-0.

Mammoth vs. HyperShock
Mammoth: 1-0 (W, KO 2:17 vs. HUGE)
HyperShock: 0-1 (L, KO 1:41 vs. Gruff)
Just your average “really tall robot vs. basically an overcaffeinated RC car,” as ya do. Mammoth scored the KO in the spectacle of the year, even if it wasn’t fight of the year. They’re two different entities. As for HyperShock, at some point it’s going to work all season, but not this year. But we’ll take starting from fight 2.

Wait, never mind, the srimech’s apparently not working according to Chris Rose. Against a lifter. This is not sucking less, guys, I’m scared, please don’t do this to me.

In the first exchange, the speed and agility of HyperShock just drove right around Mammoth, which meant HyperShock could get a couple shots on the Mammoth forks. Mammoth tried to zag when HyperShock zigged to counteract, but what it meant was HyperShock could land a little more direct and take off a piece of one of the forks. This made Mammoth unstable and HyperShock punted it across the box on its side, and got under and caused havoc. The weapon fell apart on Mammoth, the chain came loose, and unless miraculously it could get up the fight was as good as over. Well, once HyperShock could get unstuck from under the rubble.

Mammoth captain Ricky Willems called for Will Bales to come in and flip Mammoth over to continue the fight by hitting the battered Mammoth. So HyperShock obliged. But hit the battery box, which they just told him was the only thing to try and not hit. Well, that’s BattleBots, Suzyn. Anyway, the smoking just made it a more of a formality. HyperShock (and the city of Miami) gets off the schneid with a KO in what’s listed as 1:36 but that’s how much time was left on the clock. It should be 1:24.

SubZero vs. Sporkinok
SubZero: 1-1 (L, KO 1:47 vs. JackPot; W, KO 1:13 vs. Grabot)
Sporkinok: 0-1 (L, KO 2:12 vs. Rusty)
SubZero finds itself in a surprising position considering its performance the last few years. It’s managed to fight three rookies, which isn’t the greatest indictment, but a win here, and a 2-1 record, gets it on the bubble. Presumably. I have no idea what the bubble is going to look like, but this is apparently the halfway point of the season (Episode 7) so there’s what, three or four episodes after this before the tournament?

Sporkinok is still looking for its first win after not showing too much against Rusty, namely some traction issues. The spork hammer’s been added to the robot for this fight, hence the name. And Lilith Specht has the best shawl/scarf game in the pits, so that’s pretty good.

The bots met head to head and immediately seeing that those aren’t wedges but a flat area on Spokinok’s front meant that SubZero had the advantage in the leverage game and flipped the rookie over. So now we get to see the hammer self—never mind, SubZero went for another flip which actually put Sporkinok right-side up. SubZero actually had to self-right, but of course it can do that.

SubZero was the bull in the china shop, charging in, being a bit wild, missing a flip but staying right on the hammer bot’s tail, pushing her back, missing another flip, and having to get down from the screws. Nice use of the flipper to get down though, firing it once to get off the hazard and then a second time to self-right. Meanwhile, Sporkinok looked stuck. You could see the left wheels spinning, so it was still mobile. SubZero pushed it and now it looked like both bots were stuck on the side. Another fire of the flipper and the rail being one of the pinball-type ones pushed SubZero off. Sporkinok got unstuck by SubZero… well not really because it was a push and then a flip, getting Sporkinok over. Then, SubZero took a couple flips to try and get it out and/or re-right it to get the fight going. Not quite, though. Sporkinok was doing the thing again, this time balanced on the spork. SubZero wins by KO in 1:28, and is in the discussion. Next week I think I’ll do a full Bubble Watch, either in addition to or in substitute of Senor’s Sixteen. Y’know, when I’m not writing the finishing touches of this after the next week’s episode.

I implore new readers and anyone who reads these, perhaps from the Robot Wars Shuntposting group*, to read the epilogue to The D of S and listen to the audio track at the end to understand the context of why this is late.

This concludes my shameless plug.

*I know nobody from the Shuntposting group reads these.

Bale Spear vs. Tracer
Bale Spear: 0-1 (L, KO vs. Deadlift)
Tracer: 0-2 (L, KO 0:43 vs. Ribbot; L, KO vs. HiJinx)
A pair of bots whose previous fights were cut. Bale Spear, the pneumatic puncher, returns after a two-year hiatus. They now have tractor-style tires, so that’s pretty sweet. They lost their return fight to Deadlift, a rookie bot. As for Tracer, its second fight went as poorly as the first, as rookie undercutter HiJinx tallied its first win. So in all likelihood this is two teams playing out the string.

Bale Spear was smart to charge forward, but wasn’t fast enough to do so before Tracer spun up. Thus they lost one of the barn door front panels. Bale Spear responded by trying to fight Needle, the minibot. After missing a spear attack, Tracer attacked and lifted Bale Spear onto it, meaning it hit another time or two before Bale Spear got on the ground. And perfectly under Needle which used its forks to lift Bale Spear, meaning Tracer got another shot, which again left Bale Spear on top of Tracer, which pushed the farm bot to the wall. Bale Spear’s weapon worked, but that was about it. Tracer salvages a win with a KO in 1:20.

Main Event: Gruff vs. Whiplash
Gruff: 1-0 (W, KO 1:41 vs. HyperShock)
Whiplash: 0-1 (L, KO 2:30 vs. SawBlaze)
The way to beat Gruff is to go three minutes with it. Only End Game has KOed it and even that was in 2:59. So still technically three minutes. Whiplash has the reliability to do that, considering it’s a top tier bot that works. Even if last year one and exactly one wheel kept falling off. They did fix that, but Jamison Go arguably outdrove Matt Vasquez, a rarity for the latter considered one of if not the best in the biz. The shots SawBlaze landed were bulls-eyes, that’s what did Whiplash in.

Gruff’s lifter of course is its “primary weapon” but the twin flamethrowers boasting 3500° are the real damage pieces, helping cook HyperShock in their first fight. Sam McEnnis (sp), captain of Gruff, is hopeful that those flamethrowers will work well on the aluminum frame of Whiplash because aluminum is such a good conductor of heat. So it’ll come down to if those flamethrowers can get a direct blow or if Whiplash will be able to stay to the sides and attack that way. Interestingly though, one of the forks on Gruff looked like it had a slight bend and there was only one wedgelet, as in on one side. Was this a weight issue or did something happen? No clue.

Anyway Whiplash immediately didn’t do the thing they wanted to do. Or at least they stayed enough out of the way of the lifter, but still got a faceful of flame. But they fought through it to get the flywheel to land. And that pushed Gruff enough to the side for Whiplash to get to the side and get a lift and another little bit of damage, and stay on that side to go to work. Whiplash got a flip, which Gruff immediately self-righted but showed the bottom to Whiplash and got a shot from that way. They were landing jabs, and Gruff fired the flamethrowers but it looked like one went (and briefly had Gruff in the ball of flame) so one flamethrower meant that the job was half done for Whiplash.

Meanwhile Whiplash continued to work the side and get those lifts to gain control of the fight and ultimately push Gruff into the corner. There the lifter and spinner were working in conjunction, doing those little bits of damage while keeping Gruff off its wheels. They did get out of there because it was a Gruff-controlled pulverizer corner, and Whiplash took a pulverizer shot while dealing a backhand blow to Gruff.

It looked like the second flamethrower was out too, and the left fork was now very bent on Gruff as Whiplash kept working and pushing. Gruff finally got a brief push as a plume of smoke burst from Whiplash—that had to have been the spinner motor. Gruff sensing the tide turn got their first lift of the fight but couldn’t get the suplex. And then it started to faintly smoke as Whiplash pushed, and maybe pressing their luck as the smoke started again, spun the flywheel again to deal a little damage as they had Gruff pinned against the wall.

Whiplash had to let go, but came back for another lift and had Gruff back in the corner, trying to pin it against the wall, getting lifts and flips galore. The fight went to the judges, ending with Gruff upside-down at Whiplash’s mercy. To the surprise of absolutely no one, Whiplash wins by unanimous decision. (Judge Senor had damage 4-1, and aggression 3-0 and control 3-0.)

With that, here’s Senor’s Sixteen:

Uppercut (2-0)
Bloodsport (2-0)
Hydra (2-0)
End Game (1-1)
Tombstone (1-1)
Lock Jaw (2-0)
Black Dragon (2-0)
Copperhead (2-0)
SawBlaze (1-1)
MadCatter (3-0)
Whiplash (1-1)
Valkyrie (2-0)
BETA (2-0)
Malice (2-1)
Skorpios (1-1)
Kraken (1-1)

Also considered: JackPot (2-0), Shatter! (1-1), HyperShock (1-1), Perfect Phoenix (1-1), Gigabyte (1-1)
Dropped out: Gruff (1-1)

Next week we’ll have a Bubble Watch. We might still have Senor’s Sixteen. But I like reading Bubble Watch because I’m weird. No, I’m not doing a full write-up of Bubble Watches. Do you think I’m a madman?

Don’t answer that.

See you next week! For fights that were aired yesterday!