Hey, as long as they come out before I start writing about new season, I’ll take it. So, you know, just in the nick of time. Hey, there weren’t Giant Washer awards this year because my non-Mexican union equivalent Dracophile (of BattleBots Update) was apparently *checks notes* donating his time and money to worthy causes, ahh son of a bitch. My excuse is I was busy trying to be one of the harder-working musicians in the city, and what did I get for it? Definitely not enough money, I said musician. So…

Welcome to the 2021 BattleBots Beaties, home of the best, worst, blurst, cursed, weirdest, and wildest things of the past year and season of BattleBots. Because this season had a whole lot of that. And some absolutely phenomenal fights. Why is it 2021, when this is being posted in 2023 for a season that aired in 2022? Because the season was filmed in 2021 and is the 2021 Championship. Like how the upcoming World Championship VII is 2022, but I think they figured, “This is starting to get confusing” and went with Roman numerals. Like the Owl.

With that, let’s get started, first by re-stating the actual BattleBots award winners:

Giant Nut (winner of 2021 World Championship): Seems Reasonable Designs, Tantrum (Alex Grant & Ginger Schmidt, captains)
Fun fact: Ginger Schmidt becomes the first female captain or co-captain to win the Giant Nut.

Golden Bolt (winner of 2021 BattleBots Champions): OYES Robotics, End Game (Nick Mabey, captain)
Yes, the Golden Bolt also threads into the Giant Nut.

Most Destructive: Team HyperShock, HyperShock (Will Bales, captain)
Fun fact: Combined with their Best Driver Bolt from Season 2 (the only season the award was given), and HyperShock winning the still not televised 2022 re:MARS tournament (driven/captained? by Alex Bales, Will’s wife, since he was filling in for Kenny Florian on color commentary… that’s not a joke, by the way), HyperShock now has three Giant Bolts, the most of any team in BattleBots. I believe that counts as “sucking less.”

Founders’ Award: Team SawBlaze, SawBlaze (Jamison Go, captain)
No fun fact here, just that Jamo’s a solid guy and competitor and I can’t wait to see the continuous beetleweight clashes between him and Calvin Iba whenever I actually go to NHRL… maybe this year.

Rookie of the Year: (co-winners) Combot Robotics at Berkeley, Glitch (Kyle Miller, captain) & Break32, Riptide (Ethan Kurtz, captain)
No Giant Bolts for these two—instead the two teams each got the hammer head of a retired pulverizer, which probably weighs somewhere between fuck-ton and metric fuck-ton (a metric fuck-ton being approximately 1.10 US fuck-tons).

Grant Imahara Award (Best Design): Seems Reasonable Designs, Blip (Aren Hill, captain)
A good year for Seems Reasonable between their two bots. Aren Hill did the threading of the Giant Nut and Bolt. As of course, is tradition.

———

So with that we can get to the awards that I’ve had to come up with. Well, a couple used to be real awards or tongue in cheek awards, and the rest I’ve come up with over time. As for the previous awards:

Best Driver: Again, this only came the one season, which was Season 2. And I know, you can argue the same one or two people each year, it probably wouldn’t be right to give it to Matt Vasquez, or Gary Gin, or Matt Maxham, or Paul Ventimiglia, every year for eternity. Not that this driver’s any slouch. But my winner: Daniel Freitas, RioBotz, Minotaur. That one-wheeled move against End Game kept Minotaur in the fight and helped defeat the best 250-pounder in the world today.

Giant Screw: CE Robots, Kraken
I mean, both for a single fight (against Rotator) and for the whole season. Let’s just give Kraken a steady stream of spinners. More specifically horizontals (in Rotator and HiJinx, then later Blade in the SCSF) so that way they have to use the vertical frame against one of them, and by the end of it it’s basically a Franken-Kraken. And yet, just the one KO loss, which was more of a credit to Glitch than detriment to Kraken.

Stripped Screw: Team Fast Electric Robots, Whiplash
Poor Whiplash. First, due to time constraints, they only get two fights. I mean sure, they still got the 3 seed, but only two fights. (Courtesy of the HyperBlog, the third fight would have been against HyperShock, a fight that is now scheduled for this season. My guess? Winner would have gotten the 2 seed over Ribbot.) Second, both of their tournament fights get highlighted. Third, the controversial stoppage due to the unstick rules leading to a decision loss. The 2020 runners-up were expecting another deep run. Instead, they got hosed every which-way. One of those years.

And they didn’t even get to use the flywheel! (They will against MadCatter in their first fight, the pics prove it.)

Brass Ball Bearings: Kraken
See what I just said for the Giant Screw. I guess, good thing they didn’t get Valkyrie or Tombstone, to round out the set?

Mismatch of the Year: Blip vs. Rusty
As fun as it was to watch Rusty get sent through the air repeatedly… yeah, there was no way it was going to end well for them.

Senor Weaselo’s House of Pain Award
This award is given to the most copious amount of fire. Or explosions. Or explosion causings. Or both.
So congratulations, Free Shipping & Uppercut. Your tag-team efforts to play MythBusters in the BattleBox wins the award. I’ll put Gary Gin on my list of “People I keep procrastinating sending hot sauce to” after Dok Zymm.

I have the hot sauce, I just… haven’t gone to the post office. Or the UPS store, since I need to return my Adam Fox sweater to the NHL shop before the 90-day return window is up, so end of the month or so because they don’t do returns and won’t let me go to Midtown to do it. (It’s from Padre Weaselo, but it was a size too big.)

James May Award
The James May Award is originally for Captain Slow getting lost on a racetrack. In this case, it’s the BattleBox. Or, bad/dumb driving maneuvers. Anyway, there were fewer of those this year, so… come on down, Will Bales of HyperShock for not quite getting to do the Bond flip? It was the Casino Royale kind. That’s the one where he crashes it. Sometimes chaos works against you. Just look at Balls of Chaos’s 2022 Marble League.

Alex Day “Angry Ball of Physics” Award: Gigabyte (being de-shelled by HyperShock)
If this were the usual “the mount failed and the shell spun off” we’d think nothing of it. But that’s not what happened. Instead, the bolts got ripped off of the spindle, using its own power to rip the shell off. And a previously repaired tooth came off. The result? Shell goes one way, rest of robot goes the other, other parts fly all over the place. But the way the shell flew off? Have fun solving that equation, physicists of DFO!

Plunderbird “Have You Got a Srimech?” Award: Team OuiOui, Pardon My French
I’ll be honest, not a whole lot of competition on this one. But the fight against Claw Viper qualifies. I was really excited about PMF, and then I unfortunately left this fight being very disappointed since the giant drum didn’t get much of a chance to be a giant drum. With not being accepted to WCVII, we’ll see what’s next for the Quebecois squad.

“Break the Internet” Moment of the Year: Witch Doctor vs. Minotaur
Ugh, not even in the fun way. Just in the angry toxic way claiming BattleBots was showing favoritism to Witch Doctor for various reasons. Hell, even RioBotz was pissed. And the unstick rule was rightfully changed back to “No unsticks.”

For the record, if I had the power it would be “If you are pushed into a wall/arena defect and become stuck, we will unstick. If you do it yourself, tough shit.” But no unsticks is fine, I’d rather that than the BattleBots version of “Is this a catch?” Someone counted the unstick. Was it early? Maybe a bit. Would not having the shelf help? Yes. Or make it smaller but put something there. Like killsaws that actually work, or something. Working killsaws are life.

27 Dresses Award: Team Witch Doctor, Witch Doctor
It’s bad enough you became the first robot in reboot BattleBots history… *checks Comedy Central seasons* yes, reboot history (thank Chuck Pitzer for Alpha and Gamma Raptor) to be a two-time… runner-up, but then you had to also be a runner-up for the Golden Bolt. Yes, I know there’s a re:MARS and a Founder’s Award Bolt on the shelf, but… come on. There’s a word for that, and it’s called pain. Please do not be the Buffalo Bills of BattleBots (joke is void if the Bills win this year).

Quote of the Year: “This is weird—OH! My transmitter got changed.” -Will Bales
Not only does HyperShock now lead in Giant Bolts, but they (or more specifically, Will) now lead in Quote of the Year awards. I’m pretty sure the team’s happier about the former. This was right before the aforementioned HyperShock KOing Gigabyte, which makes it what happened even more impressive. (Something for some reason flipped the throttle and steering commands on the transmitter, meaning the throttle controlled steering and vice-versa. And then Will Bales used the flipped commands transmitter to line HyperShock up for that hit.)

Upset of the Year: Riptide over Uppercut
Okay, technically you should be saying Hydra over Ribbot since that was a 31-2 upset, but come on, it’s Hydra. That doesn’t count. Riptide, a raw rookie, beating Uppercut to make it to the quarters? That’s an upset. (And for all the badass shit Uppercut does, they never made the quarterfinals. They’re not in this season, I think due to other things going on, but I believe members of the team are on Omega Team, split between Ripperoni and Starchild.)

Spinner-Killer of the Year: Seems Reasonable Designs, Blip
This one’s tough, but by beating Lock-Jaw, Valkyrie, and Jackpot, that’s 3-0 against spinners, one of them a Most Destructive winner. Good enough for me!

Breakout Robot of the Year: Abberant Robotics, P1
P1 had been in that “Probably not gonna make the tournament but could probably be in that mid-range” tier. Last year, it was bot 33. And this year… a strong 2-1 with a win over Valkyrie as its signature win, and a win over fellow 2020 bubble bot HyperShock. Sure, it got bodied by SawBlaze, but point and top 16 made. Unfortunately it was P1’s last hoorah as Brandon Zalinsky is now one of the captains of Omega Team, namely, next-gen thwackbot Starchild.

Comeback Bot of the Year: TKO Robotics, Lucky
I know, “Lucky was never that good though!” And you can argue, in BattleBots specifically, Lucky’s performance should have him in the above column with P1. But come on, Marc Demers and Lucky (or the original version, Ziggy) pretty much cleaned out the 340 lb. super heavyweight division in Robogames in the 2010s. So welcome back to the tourney, Marc Demers. And Matt Olson’s a hell of a driver, as you’d expect from an RC champ.

KO of the Year: HyperShock vs. Gigabyte (Sin City Slugfest Final)
In the “Top 10 Nastiest Knockouts” special they showed after the premiere last week, this was number 1.

Honorable mention to Big Dill impaling the Upper Deck thanks to being sent flipping by Blip. That’s more for being hilarious, though. It definitely put a new meaning to “stuck the landing.”

Hit of the Year: Cobalt vivisects Ghost Raptor
Honorable mention to Glitch’s punt of Rotator, but there’s something about a robot breaking in half that’s so… satisfying isn’t the word. Beautifully grotesque? Here’s what was left.

Also, somehow this was only 7th, behind illustrious technically-not-a-KO Minotaur vs. Blacksmith, Bronco vs. Hydra, and Tombstone vs. End Game. I wouldn’t necessary call them “nasty.” Maybe momentous and historically important. You know what wasn’t on there? Anything from the classic series, like Nightmare vs. Slam Job (actually a double KO), Son of Whyachi vs. Nightmare, Diesector vs. Final Destiny, or Hazard vs. Complete Control (which, I remind you, was for a middleweight championship.) I’ll do my own list later.

Occurrence of the Year: Overhaul vs. Big Dill, Chair Match (Vengeance in Vegas)
Yes, chair match. Is it the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen? Yes. Is it hilarious? Also yes.

Why? Because we can.

Fight of the Year (Honorable Mention): Witch Doctor vs. HyperShock (Champions semifinal)
This fight had everything. Roommates, tire facials, wheelies, Technical T. Rex. It was equal parts thrilling, bizarre, and hilarious. And also a pretty good fight. Not fight of the year, because that would be…

2021 Fight of the Year: Minotaur vs. End Game (Round of 16)
This fight had two top bots at the top of their game, thrilling back and forths, the driving move of the year, and at the end, an upset as the defending champ was (momentarily) knocked off his perch. Had it been a championship fight I wouldn’t have been surprised, as both teams and bots have been on that stage before. And that was a round of 16 fight? Damn.

We’ll be back with the Beat tomorrow morning (assuming I can find all the fights because I’ve got some rehearsals the next few Thursdays…). As for now in important stuff, I’d say, watch… oof, the NHL national games aren’t great (the TNT games are NSH-TOR, then SJS-LAK) so watch your friendly neighborhood local listings, and if you’re into the rasslin’, watch to see if WWE’s about to be sold to Saudi Arabia and then watch to see how many people jump ship/are cut loose if that deal goes through.

Anyways, have fun!