Welcome back to the Beat! It’s the last midnight Fight Night of the (technically) 2020 season, and with it the 32-bot bracket will be revealed following the conclusion. Will there be seeding complaints? Undoubtedly! Who’s in and out complaints? Probably! Will we know? Not until the end, so onto the fights!

Hydra vs. Uppercut
Hydra: 2-0 (W, JD 2-1 vs. Witch Doctor; W, JD 3-0 vs. HUGE)
Uppercut: 2-0 (W, KO 0:25 vs. Gemini; W, KO 1:08 vs. SawBlaze)
Interesting opening fight, but you figure the winner in that case more than likely gets the 1 seed.

So far in terms of the body of work, Hydra’s had one thrilling fight (the win over Witch Doctor) and one snoozefest (the bike rack). Uppercut has had two quick KOs with some of the KO/Hit of the Year candidates—tossing one of the Gemini twins out of the Box, and then hitting SawBlaze’s fuel tank for the explosion. So right now I’d say Uppercut has the inside track for the 1 seed, but the question is going to be their maneuverability. They got the jump on both Gemini and SawBlaze (helped by a rare driving mistake by Jamison Go). I think Luke Ewert’ll be more cautious because Hydra does not want to deal with that front on Uppercut at all.

Oh, and Uppercut had a minibot! Which was a Hexbug BattleBots set (complete with Tombstone and Witch Doctor) attached to some wheels. Angling for that sweet, sweet Hexbug money, eh? Can’t blame ya.

First things first, both bots briefly got stuck on the floor. But when they finally did meet head to head Uppercut’s forks went right up Hydra’s wedge and it was an easy flip.

From there Uppercut was looking to regain control of itself, getting on its sides to try and re-right, gyroing a bit. Hydra wisely kept its distance, instead flipping the BattleBox up the BattleBox. Yeah, weird sentence, I know. Once Uppercut was back up and tried to attack, kind of a repeat, up the wedge and an easy flip. Uppercut landed on its mounting and kicked back. And I think that bent its forks.

Not that it was mattering because Hydra got behind for a third flip, then a fourth (smaller than the others). They went for the OOTA angle but Uppercut slipped away enough to finally get a bite on Hydra’s side, but apart from sparks it wasn’t the big shot we’ve seen so far this year. Both bots were looking for an angle and here’s where I mentioned Uppercut’s forks were bent as it got caught briefly in a killsaw slot. But every time they went head to head Uppercut went right up the wedge and Hydra could land the flip (five). After a smaller one (six) Uppercut took a piece of the screw casings, which doesn’t count as damage obviously. Uppercut was looking a bit wobbly but Hydra couldn’t line up big flip angles unless necessary (seven). Plus the vertical weapon looked like it might have been out as Hydra shunted Uppercut onto the screws. They were able to reverse and spit Uppercut out but right to a waiting Hydra (eight). Hydra looked to try and get that big 15-footer, but in these latter stages both bots were having some ground clearance issues. Remember, level does not mean flat, especially as an event continues. It did mean Uppercut could spin up, but it took some time for Uppercut to get around and finally get another hit to Hydra’s sides, though it lost one of its stability bars. It attacked again and went right up the wedge again (nine). One final big flip (ten) put Uppercut on its side where the bar was gone, and so it remained for the last nine seconds, finally re-righting as the buzzer sounded. But the last flip damaged Hydra too since the flipper arm hadn’t retracted. But it should have been a fairly easy decision.
D: I had it 4-1. Uppercut had some bites and the flipper arm did get stuck at the end. Even if that wasn’t Uppercut’s doing.
A: 2-1. Uppercut charged when it could. It didn’t work, but it tried!
C: 3-0. Hydra had the control from the jump.

To the surprise of no one, Hydra wins by unanimous decision.

Rusty vs. SawBlaze
Rusty: 1-1 (W, KO 2:12 vs. Sporkinok; L, KO 1:49 vs. Beta)
SawBlaze: 1-1 (W, KO 2:30 vs. Whiplash; L, KO 1:08 vs. Uppercut)
Could it be? A win and in fight for everybody’s favorite robot from this year, Rusty? Especially considering it would be over a bot considered a preseason contender in SawBlaze?

Speaking of, would SawBlaze be on much more rocky terrain with a loss here? They’d definitely go from “probable” to “bubble” with a worse “worst loss” than Rotator, HUGE, etc. It would definitely make it a more interesting bubble. Also, is SawBlaze at 100% after it literally exploded? They have the saw on for this fight rather than the hammer saw, whether it’s for the show or something debilitating we may have to find out.

Well, I’m not sure if I can report on this one. Because it was basically three minutes of SawBlaze buzzing away. There were many sparks as SawBlaze was on the side, then on Rusty’s arm, the tread guard. There were clean cuts in that Rusty armor. SawBlaze took Rusty to the screws, the driver’s booth, the wall…

But Rusty was still mobile. Granted, SawBlaze tipped him over and tipped him back, but Rusty was still mobile. The pulverizer caved his back in, there was a dent in the popcorn bowl and cuts on his face. The air hammer was cut off and there appeared to be a cauterizing fire where it was removed from the arm.

But Rusty was still mobile, even as the buzzer sounded. Hats off to Dave Eaton. Rusty survived three minutes with a top bot!

But anyway, SawBlaze wins by unanimous decision, and if Rusty got a single point from any of the judges I’d be surprised.

Gamma 9 vs. Tantrum
Gamma 9: 0-1 (L, JD 3-0 vs. Chomp)
Tantrum: 1-1 (L, KO 2:44 vs. Valkyrie; W, KO 1:13 vs. Atom #94)
For Tantrum this is the make or break fight. With a win, combined with a 2-1 record and looking pretty good in the loss to Valkyrie, they’re probably in. With a loss, all bets are off.

As for Gamma 9, this is their second known fight. If there is a third, we don’t know it. So I’m gonna assume either they lost that hypothetical fight or something but regardless they’re probably not dancing.

You can see the difference in size between the two bots, both weighing the same. And it was the compact Tantrum corralling Gamma 9 like a sheepdog, right to the pulverizer. While getting some punches in on Gamma 9’s wedge.

Tantrum’s disk was humming as it punched into the sides of Gamma 9, working at those wheel guards, trying to punch at the sides and ending up getting a full diagonal run from one corner to the other, sending Gamma 9 into the wall. Tantrum’s forks were getting under Gamma 9’s wedge and lifter seemingly at will.

The puncher punched and damaged the wedge, and the leverage meant Tantrum could flip Gamma 9 over. For now it could self-right, as Tantrum tested it with a second flip thanks to the screws while taking out the other wheel guard. One more push to the corner sealed it and Tantrum counted out Gamma 9 with the ref. Tantrum all but punches its ticket with a KO just under the bell in 2:59.

End Game vs. HyperShock
End Game: 1-1 (W, KO 0:39 vs. Tombstone; L, KO 1:10 vs. Bloodsport)
HyperShock: 1-1 (L, KO 1:41 vs. Gruff; W, KO 1:36 vs. Mammoth)
The fact that this is each bot’s third fight tells me that both are as of this moment on the safe side of the bubble, and barring catastrophe will remain so. Additionally, with the win over Tombstone and loss to undoubtedly a top 5 bot End Game should be pretty much a lock assuming it gets out of its starting square. A win here solidifies a top 16, probably a top 10 seed. A win for HyperShock puts them at lock status, a loss and they’re probably on the bubble below Rotator and HUGE, so mid to high 20s, maybe as low as 30? Please suck less, Will Bales and co.. Please. Wait the srimech’s still borked, godfuckingdammit. This isn’t helping matters!

HyperShock kinda tried a box rush but it was half-hearted. Didn’t matter as End Game’s forks meant HyperShock got turned aside. The two went weapon to weapon and HyperShock got flipped over.

Yeah, a working srimech would come in handy about now.

HyperShock could still drive but End Game cut off the route expertly for the ol’ run into the wall and flip yourself over technique. End Game helped flip them over, but that was by flipping them onto the screws, and then as HyperShock fell from the screws a hit on what would be the srimech plate tilted HyperShock so its srimech was stuck on the wall.

That’s a new way of doing the thing. And that is a QR code on HyperShock’s bottom, by the way. The link is to the “secret” store where there’s more merch (including a chance to buy your own, as seen on TV HyperShock, for the low low price of $70K… hey, it’s a nice discount from the “original” price).

Anyway End Game wins in 53 seconds. And you know how I said “barring catastrophe”? Yeah, this is kinda what I meant by catastrophe. This was a Murphy’s Law fight for HyperShock.

Get on the bubble guys, no mid-20s seed for you. Sorry, them’s the rules.

SMEEEEEEEEEEEEE vs. P1
SMEEEEEEEEEEEEE: 1-1 (W, JD 3-0 vs. Sharkoprion; L, JD 2-1 vs. Pain Train)
P1: 1-1 (W, KO 1:23 vs. Chronos; L, KO 0:38 vs. Copperhead)
Ah yes, the bot with the longest name (SMEEEEE is technically spelled with as many Es as you can fit leading to an infinite amount; my personal favorite is taking from math and using SMEEĒ. Similar to 0.333 repeating) against the bot with the shortest (two characters). With the winner very likely getting in. SMEEĒ is 1-1 but in my opinion should be 2-0 because if you ask me it won the fight with Pain Train. But at the same time, Sharko and Pain Train make for a soft schedule and it’s not like the longboi looked super impressive in either fight. On the other hand, P1 did get a probably top 4 seeded bot in Copperhead to fight. But you can’t really call it much of a fight. Like, they did worse than how HyperShock looked against End Game a few minutes ago.

I guess it made sense for P1 to box rush right in the middle of SMEEEEE to keep it from trying to cut the ring. A fortuitous skid off one of the pods bumped the big robot right onto P1 right where its lifter could lift at the center of balance and send one of the pods into the wall and wedging it on the rails. P1 ended up knocking it down, continuing the fight. It was behind the springs though so by running headlong into SMEEEEE it couldn’t spring back towards P1 and it was easy for P1 to push the whole apparatus back into the wall, bumping one into the screws, then after it fell trying to push the other.

P1 was dominating the fight, though briefly high-centered or something as it couldn’t move for a moment until it picked the lifter up. SMEEEEE did get the occasional wedge on P1’s back but the diminutive lifter was going right up the pod, so SMEEEEE wasn’t able to control it. P1’s traction issues were continuing briefly, but once it found a patch the two bots were circling each other until P1 charged through. SMEEEEE was now going through its own drive issues as it was circling around one pod. Fortunately for it P1 picked it up and do-si-doed it, slamming one pod into the wall, then backing up to push the whole thing in a box-length rush. P1 continued to shove as SMEEEEE had also lost one of its undercutters. One lift put a pod on the screws and the second put SMEEEE on the rear of the pods, leaning on the wall. No length can save that. P1 wins a fun fight by KO in 2:56. At 2-1 and with their third fight being their best, they’ve gone from winless in 2019 to on the bubble.

Beta vs. Grabot
Beta: 2-0 (W, JD 2-1 vs. Rotator; W, KO 1:49 vs. Rusty)
Grabot: 0-1 (L, KO 1:13 vs. SubZero)
Well this seems like a mismatch. Only a catastrophe could keep Beta out, and I don’t see it suddenly exploding without Grabot touching it. Or with Grabot touching it for that matter. But let’s be real, it’s had a fairly easy schedule save Rotator.

When we last saw Grabot SubZero was flipping it over repeatedly. It kinda reminds me of Crushtacean from Robot Wars, but not as cool on account of just being a wedge with claws, and not looking like a crab.

Grabot had traction issues. Which actually helped them as Beta tried to scoop them up with the wedge and drove around the spinning Grabot right into the wall.

Take two was a bit better and it showed how good Beta’s wedge is because they went wedge on wedge and everything was fine. Also because they were just pushing Grabot around and stuff was falling off. I have no idea what stuff, but that’s probably bad.

Beta had not fired the hammer yet. They had cornered and pulverized Grabot first. And then they fired the hammer! Just a glancing shot off one of the claws, which still drew sparks. Goddamn, that’s impressive. Also if they miss they might have to repair the floor in that case.

And then the hammering could begin in earnest. Well, twice, then taking Grabot to a different corner with a shot. Then seeing Grabot was pretty much out of it, a few more hammers.

You can see the dents from a total of 6 hammer strikes. And the smoke rising out of Grabot. And then a few more hammer strikes.

Beta wins in 2:33. The schedule was soft, but that hammer sure as hell isn’t. And can we just get John Reid a foot pedal so he can control the hammer rather than have someone else do it? You know he’d wait for a good hit.

Main Event: Whiplash vs. Valkyrie
Whiplash: 1-1 (L, KO 2:30 vs. SawBlaze; W, JD 3-0 vs. Gruff)
Valkyrie: 2-0 (W, KO 2:44 vs. Tantrum; W, JD 3-0 vs. Rotator)
Well here we are, the final main event of the final fight night card. Both of these bots should be considered probables if not locks. Yes, even Whiplash with a loss is probably in. I’d have it behind only Witch Doctor and Tombstone in the 1-2 bots, so outlook would still be good. A win would eliminate any doubt of course because the bracket won’t be shown until after the fight.

Interestingly Whiplash is forgoing its standard formation, electing to use the version without the lifter. That means they can armor up against Valkyrie, which showed its reliability this season (finally!) in that three minute sparks show against Rotator.

Well, that was a box rush by Whiplash. Valkyrie got shunted off a screw casing. But then Valkyrie followed by spinning up and sending Whiplash spinning. Whiplash returned the favor by charging again and sending Valkyrie back, then both charged and were sent spinning. Whiplash got underneath Valkyrie and from that charge and the subsequent kick off the floor it looked like Valkyrie’s weapon had stopped, or at least couldn’t get up to speed. Which meant it was time for the Vasquez brothers to do their thing (because I think Jason runs the lifter?). And they were working in tandem in that case because the lifter had Valkyrie up enough to where Whiplash could balance Valkyrie on top and push it around. And Chris Rose, for the third time tonight, got to mention a robot taking their opponent on a grand tour of the BattleBox and its hazards. Namely the screws at this point, as Whiplash couldn’t quite get Valkyrie up and over—apparently Valkyrie’s wheel guards are meant to prevent it from tipping over because it did that a lot last year. But as one of them got damaged, Whiplash managed to do the trick, and flip it back over, and then back inverted again, all the while trying to have Valkyrie hit every panel of railing. I counted a total of eight separate times Valkyrie was flipped (which meant she ended right-side up, hey!). Matt Vasquez tried to finish with it on the screws but fortunately Valkyrie came back to the floor as time ran out and it went the distance.
D: 4-1. There was damage to Whiplash’s plow where there was a serious cut. Not enough to rip it off but it showed how useful that extra armor was.
C: 3-0
A: 3-0

Again, surprising no one, Whiplash wins by unanimous decision.

And with that, here we go. The final, last possible second Bubble Watch, followed by the bracket.

LOCKS
Bloodsport (3-0), MadCatter (3-0), Jackpot (3-0), Copperhead (3-0), Hydra (3-0), Beta (3-0)
Lock-Jaw (2-1), Skorpios (2-1), Malice (2-1), Black Dragon (2-1), Shatter! (2-1), Gigabyte (2-1), Perfect Phoenix (2-1), Uppercut (2-1), End Game (2-1), SawBlaze (2-1), Valkyrie (2-1), Whiplash (2-1), Fusion (2-1), Ribbot (2-1), Tantrum (2-1)

PROBABLES
Tombstone (1-2), Witch Doctor (1-2)

BUBBLE (in order of likelihood according to me) (9 spots)
SlamMow! (2-1), HUGE (1-2), Rotator (1-2), Kraken (1-2), Gruff (1-2), HiJinx (2-1), P1 (2-1), Mammoth (2-1), HyperShock (1-2)
(CUT LINE)
SubZero (2-1), Big Dill (1-2), Claw Viper (1-2), Extinguisher (1-2), Captain Shrederator (1-2), Ghost Raptor (1-2), SMEEEEEEEEE (1-2)

DOUBTFUL (2 OR FEWER KNOWN FIGHTS)
Deadlift (1-1), Pain Train (1-1), Slap Box (1-1), Black Widow (1-0), Gemini (0-1), Aegis (0-1), Rampage (0-1)
(Black Widow beat Rampage by JD)

Well, let’s see what we got. The bracket, please!

Well, there you have it. As I said, the winner of Hydra-Uppercut fight got the top seed.

The main snub really is P1, the only 2-1 bot to not make the tournament. There was some blowback about HyperShock getting that 32 seed when it looked as bad as a robot possibly could in its fight against End Game. So, why HyperShock and not End Game? Well, I guess overall SOS (HyperShock had three fights against top-32 bots, while P1 had just the fight against Copperhead). My guess is in a way the Mammoth and SMEEEEE fights canceled each other out too, both in terms of size and how the two bots looked respectively. So I’m guessing it was HyperShock’s showing against Gruff, where it looked decent until crapping out… and then getting roasted and super crapping out—topped P1’s relative snoozefest win against Chronos.

I actually had both bots in, as you can see above. I instead had SubZero as my odd bot out, considering its wins were over Sporkinok and Grabot, both bots that didn’t exactly light it up this year. But that loss to JackPot where SubZero looked pretty decent before the gremlins hit got better and better over the season and that was enough to vault them into the tournament.

With that, here are four bots I think were underseeded:
SlamMow!: I’m surprised it got 28. I know one of its fights was untelevised and against softer competition, but I think its two televised fights showed it well, and the loss was a spirited effort against a backs to the wall Witch Doctor. I had it as the first of my bubble teams, which meant I had it 24th.
Perfect Phoenix: I’m guessing the fight against Atom #94 cost it a couple spots due to the weapon breaking and the smoke at the end, but it smashed the weapon which was not Atom #94’s issue. But the quick win over Extinguisher ought to have looked better thanks to that upset of the year candidate, and the loss to Skorpios was to a robot given the 10th seed. I had them 21st.
MadCatter: Come on, they went 3-0 and beat both Malice and Fusion. They get 12th and Tombstone in the first round? Tough crowd. I had them at 8th.
Witch Doctor: Actually the seeding is close to where I had them, I would’ve probably said 22nd, which considering I had Skorpios at 11 would have led to the exact same 1st-round fight. This is more the feeling of “why are they not the highest ranked 1-2 bot?” Contrary to Jake Ewert’s memories on the Tale of the Tape aftershow (a personal recommendation, hosted by Mike & Andrea Gellatly and Will Bales), Witch Doctor took the #1 seed to a split decision, with all three fights being against top-32 bots while Tombstone had Slap Box and Rotator had The Big Dill (probably #34 or #35 with Claw Viper). Honestly you could give an honorable mention to Kraken here for the same issues, except they’re a seed higher than I would have given them (I had them as 27, actual 26), but similar strength of schedule against three top-32 bots, plus the head to head over Witch Doctor gives them the argument that they should have been the top 1-2 bot.

Conversely, here are my four overseeded bots:
SubZero: Obviously, if I had them out completely I’m not expecting them to be the 24th seed.
Black Dragon: The 5th seed is obviously a high-tier bot. But the only fight they dominated was the Claw Viper fight. The controversial battle with Kraken, while a great showing for both teams, was still a split decision against the eventual 26th-seeded bot, while credit where credit’s due to survive the three minutes with Copperhead, it’s still a fairly resounding loss. I had the Brazilian bot 12th.
Tombstone/Rotator: Basically, the other end of the Witch Doctor argument. Not that Tombstone was super overseeded on my chart, since I had it at 23 and it ended up at 21. Rotator’s probably the bigger one, since I had it behind SlamMow and HUGE at 26. Not 22.

My three most-looked forward fights:
(8) Whiplash vs. (25) HUGE: It’s a rematch of last season’s round of 16 fight, where Whiplash had the advantage of seeing HyperShock’s Rakening 2.0 strategy in action almost working, with the advantage of having a lifter/spinner that could actually do something about it and support the weight of a 250-lb. robot. How will HUGE counter?
(10) Skorpios vs. (23) Witch Doctor: This is genuinely a BattleBots All-Stars level fight and we’re getting it as a first-rounder. Two extremely sturdy robots with legitimate championship aspirations.
(12) MadCatter vs. (21) Tombstone: The intrigue here is predominantly because it’s Tombstone as a lower seed. MadCatter tanked Fusion to the point it caught on fire, but not sure how much of that was due to Fusion first-fight gremlins.

Lastly, here’s my bracket. If the site lets me upload a PDF.

Are we doing a bracket this year? No. Why? Because 1) technically you can watch the episode right now on Discovery+ which means whatever the deadline would be you could get the entire first episode right and get a leg up on the pile, and II) because of time reasons and having to figure shit out for this year’s Banner Tournament. (Thanks to the Balls Compilation post, we currently have 52 banner comments, so I’d like to see how/if we can get to 64 so I don’t have to deal with byes. Or minimal byes.)

But I will explain my picks for this week as we run through the left side of the bracket. My winners in bold.

Hydra vs. HyperShock: Both Jake Ewert and Will Bales were acting coy about this fight in Tale of the Tape, so I’m kind of expecting a non-sucking HyperShock fight. Worst case scenario Will Bales’ll toss himself out of the arena like they did last year in a whiteboard fight.

Malice vs. Gigabyte: Gigabyte has not done well against spinners, whether it’s the spin-up time or what. And I feel Malice can tank it, as long as she doesn’t Do the Thing again.

Whiplash vs. HUGE: Man, they’ve really given HUGE the shaft this year? The meta-breaker gets one of the bots that can actually hit it (see last year).

Valkyrie vs. SubZero: SubZero flipping Valkyrie would make this interesting because the undercutter is nowhere near as effective as an overhead spinner, but I like Valkyrie’s reliability in this one.

Uppercut vs. HiJinx: My upset special! HiJinx is a low robot and I don’t know if Uppercut’ll get the geometry it wants for those punishing blows. Plus I still think it’s got maneuverability questions in terms of gyroing. HiJinx showed good control and speed in the fight against Chomp, so I think they might be spry enough to get in and get around the hard hitter.

Beta vs. Ribbot: The foam frog head might be Ribbot’s biggest saving grace in this one. But can they get through that Hardox wedge? They’d definitely have to go with the vert configuration, the undercutter would get chewed up. Y’know what? I’m changing from Beta to Ribbot. (Fixes bracket accordingly.)

Black Dragon vs. SlamMow!: I kinda see this as a reprise of the Witch Doctor fight for SlamMow!, unfortunately. Props to Craig Danby though, this robot actually worked this year!

MadCatter vs. Tombstone: They’ll probably run the wedge and the vert, and it did tank Fusion and Malice. So props to MadCatter on that if they pull this off. But to the extent robots can feel things I sense an angry Tombstone after that controversial count-out. Or an angry Ray Billings. Either way.

It seems it won’t let me post a PDF. I have it saved though, so what I will say is that I have Copperhead over Black Dragon in the final. (I have Copperhead beating Bloodsport and Black Dragon beating Whiplash in the semis, after much deliberation on driver vs. who wins the ground game.) Oh wait, I can just screencap it!

Let’s see how wrong I am in four weeks! Or even next week!