Welcome back to the Beat! Let me first day that don’t worry, we’re not talking about the good Doktor’s former employer, but the general metagame of combat robotics. How do we get there? Well, we’ll show you over the course of the fights, duh.

It’s the last super-packed week, the last eight-fight episode as opposed to your Fight Night and championship night seven. With that, let’s get to the octet. To the fights!

(21) Black Dragon vs. (28) Ribbot
Hoo boy, do we start off with a barnburner of a rematch for you. Or dragonburner, because when these two squared off two seasons ago, Black Dragon spent over half the fight on fire. And won. If we see a reprise, we’ll be set up pretty nicely for a Fight of the Year candidate. Both bots won via seeding upsets, and both snatching victory from the jaws of defeat: Ribbot over the then-undefeated Quantum after being left stuck, Black Dragon over Ripperoni after the latter controlled the majority of the fight, then mostly died. It’s also the highlight fight, so hey, here we go:

Well, it looked at first like Black Dragon was just stuck on Ribbot, but the drive was probably dead at that point. Regardless, doesn’t change the outcome.

Ribbot wins by KO, getting revenge for two years ago, and makes a return trip to the quarterfinals.

(3) Witch Doctor vs. (14) Lock-Jaw
These are two of the bots that have fought in all seven seasons. It’s these two, Captain Shrederator, and HyperShock. Yet, they’ve never fought each other, somehow. Well, that’s getting rectified now! We know the setups, no major changes, so you just let the bots fight.

Witch Doctor went wide, and it almost looked like Mike Gellatly overcorrected, briefly showing the bot’s back to Lock-Jaw. But he was able to turn it around in time, pulling the reverse to get the first clash at even footing. Two hits, and Lock-Jaw’s front right wheel was already tattered, as it spun itself off, down to three.

Lock-Jaw tried to keep it close, and drone Spitfire attempted to come in to assist, but all that led was Witch Doctor sending Lock-Jaw airborne and taking out the drone. Who needs a rake?

Lock-Jaw was definitely in trouble, already turned around, and Witch Doctor could punt it into the corner, under the pulverizer, and come in for a maybe-dead Lock-Jaw? It had stopped moving after the pulverizer, but was that delay or was that dead drive? Regardless, a hit from Witch Doctor sent pieces coming off, and if it wasn’t a KO, it was now.

Witch Doctor wins by KO and makes its third quarterfinal. The last two (including last year) were finals appearances—can it go 3/3, and can it go one fight outcome better?

(1) Minotaur vs. (17) Malice
Minotaur’s been on its run. So far, 5-0, and the only non-KO was the battle for the top seed against Witch Doctor. What can Bunny Liaw (née Sauriol, congrats again!) do? How about call in for advice from Paul Ventimiglia and Ray Billings, the latter of whom joined the pit crew for the tourney while rehabbing? They said similar things: go for the big weapon. So Big Red finally makes its appearance, trying to stop the raging bull’s drum.

The two bots spun up, taking their time to meet in the middle, and I’d have to say Malice won the exchange, sending Minotaur across the Box and flipping it over. Minotaur didn’t immediately gyro-flip over, since it had to spin up to get there and Malice was already storming to press the advantage. Minotaur was able to repel and get time to spin up for the maneuver, but as Daniel Freitas was working the Brazilian bot over, Malice hit it, slamming Minotaur almost point-blank into the screws by the red square, as Minotaur slid from there to the ones by the Upper Deck. And somehow, Minotaur didn’t seem worse for wear, though it needed to spin back up obviously.

Malice had Minotaur now by the blue screws, where it spun like a very dangerous coin, though Malice could keep it there for a time. Eventually, finally, Minotaur got over, and it was a good move by Malice driver David Liaw to come in and try and hit Minotaur’s underbelly. But a little late, as Minotaur was on the ground and it was a weapon to weapon strike. It took a few seconds to see what had happened, but the force took Big Red’s tooth off, and killed the weapon spinning entirely. All that first minute or so of dominance by Malice, pretty much negated in one unfortunate swoop.

Minotaur, now holding the upper hand, pushed Malice to the screws, pinning it before giving a pop. Strangely enough, Minotaur was predominantly pushing, rather than looking for space to spin up, as the drum didn’t seem to have its full bite. Malice tried to push, but it’s not a pushing robot and Minotaur could reverse it each time.

It went to the judges, who unsurprisingly, thanks to those two minutes, went for Minotaur, the winner by unanimous decision. Malice almost had an astounding upset, by the skin of Big Red’s teeth.

(7) End Game vs. (10) Copperhead
From one betting favorite drumbot to the other betting favorite, facing a drumbot. Yes, even though it’s the 7th seed, End Game remains a favorite to win it all, thanks in part to the lone loss this year from beating itself, to Ripperoni’s benefit. But, their lone loss last year was to Minotaur, and Copperhead fits a similar profile, tanky drum built like a brick based off an animal. They’re a little less in the parts library department though, as Luke Quintal and co. have mentioned they’re running dangerously low.

What forks will Nick Mabey, Jack Barker, and co. come up with? Actually, not that crazy. The super-long forks have kinda gone away since that Ripperoni fight, so mostly piano keys with two inner forks. They worked in the first exchange, as Copperhead went right up and flipped over. End Game, after getting the forks stuck on seams, was able to corral them up and send Copperhead to a very tight 4 1/2. You can’t get that angular momentum from divers. And this continued for more hits, though Copperhead had broken off one of the two forks.

And, and this is a big one, it seemed that End Game’s weapon was jammed, because it could spin about 10 degrees. Regardless, that would be a major development. This meant Copperhead could now come in undaunted, not have to deal with seeing how many flips it could do, and start chipping away at the front of End Game, taking off the wedgelets, taking off the fork. And that meant Copperhead could now get under End Game, systematically grinding away the front end. Copperhead managed to take off every wedgelet and fork, then the front end mounts. Copperhead fired a shot that flipped End Game over, and for the first time since they installed it, End Game had to use the srimech.

End Game could push a bit, and you could see the weapon starting to spin intermittently, but with nowhere near the energy that it could be useful. Copperhead kept hitting End Game, spinning it out, until it hit End Game in a way that the front end hit a seam and fell on its no longer wedged face. I don’t know how it managed to be stuck there, probably using the weapon as the other point of contact, but that would do it. Lucky for them, it happened with ten seconds left, so…

Copperhead wins by unanimous decision (not KO).

(8) SawBlaze vs. (24) Monsoon
Our second rematch of the night, this one a rematch from WC3, where Monsoon beat SawBlaze to ultimately make the quarterfinals. Winner gets a rematch with Minotaur, either to codify (SawBlaze, Fight Nights, Season 6) or for revenge (Monsoon, the previously mentioned quarterfinal). For this one, SawBlaze has some ears to protect the arm.

The two bots wheeled around, and Tom Brewster went a little too far, showing Monsoon’s side, which SawBlaze scooped up and eventually put a shot on the top of Monsoon. Monsoon responded though by having SawBlaze go right up it, right up the weapon, and suplexed itself. Less than ideal, I’d say.

SawBlaze looked mostly okay, though Monsoon could push now, as it had a little bit of warp in the tines. But SawBlaze oléd enough to get Monsoon back on the forks, which slowly, slowly, tipped it over. Monsoon had to take a moment to reset the weapon (it is reverseable) but in that time SawBlaze had buried the weapon into the top. Monsoon got free and hit the forks, but couldn’t totally escape SawBlaze’s grasp. Monsoon was damaging the bunny ears, but that meant that they were doing their job.

What briefly did not do the job was Monsoon’s forks, as in running from SawBlaze Tom Brewster had jammed them up the killsaw slot. This possibly could have been fight over, but instead SawBlaze dropped the hammer saw on the wheel guards, then the body of Monsoon. SawBlaze continued to control the fight, taking Monsoon to the rails, where it also nearly got stuck before the bumper/flipper moved, then to a corner where it looked like Monsoon could have been in a perma-wheelie if not for (I think their) pulverizer. Which killed the weapon, and it didn’t even hit with the hammer, but the shaft.

So, one last-ditch weaponless run by Monsoon and it somehow managed to… do the thing, I think? Yup, facedown on the weapon, weapon not spinning, wheels off the ground, that counts as doing the thing. That’ll be a fight-ender.

SawBlaze wins by KO, imparting some revenge for WC3’s round of 16 and earning a rematch of last year’s fight cards with Minotaur in the quarterfinals.

(4) Hydra vs. (20) Whiplash
Yes, one more rematch from WC5. The controversial quarterfinal that seemed to be too close to call, that Whiplash won by the narrowest of margins en route to the final. This time, Matt Vasquez wants something a little more definitive, while Jake Ewert is still thinking Nut or bust. Heh.

Both bots slowly inched out of their starting squares, as Hydra fired the first shot, missing. Whiplash didn’t come forward during the reset though, instead waiting for a second bait move. Hydra missed again and this time Whiplash charged forward, but too late, as Hydra had reset and flipped Whiplash (1), nearly having it land on top of them. Hydra continued (2) but couldn’t continue the chain, nearly getting lifted by Whiplash, falling off at the last second.

Whiplash was doing a pretty good job of getting Hydra to miss, as maybe Jake Ewert was a little too trigger-happy, but it wasn’t getting to capitalize quick enough. Instead, it was the quick trigger of Jake Ewert getting the job done, as (3) put Whiplash in a tougher position with its lifting arm up. It could still self-right, but less elegantly, more time consuming, and Hydra could have continued, but was unable to.

Whiplash looked like it was having some sort of issues, whether drive or radio, or something. It tried to use the lifter, and it managed to rip off its own armor on the arm, so maybe that had been jamming the weapon up. Regardless, it was strategy-change time, as now Matt Vasquez went for the hammer saw approach, hitting Hydra with a backhand. Hydra countered (4), and I guess whatever lifter issues were going on were enough, because Whiplash wasn’t self-righting. Some dap between the two, and yeah, that was the fight.

Hydra wins by KO and gets… another rematch, this time from last year’s first-round fight against Ribbot.

(6) HUGE vs. (22) MadCatter
Let’s start with the joke from last week. Martin Mason was on the Road to the Giant Nut aftershow talking about modifications to take on HUGE. Like an anti-HUGE harpoon. A HUGEpoon, if you will.

And I have no idea how this man was able to say that with a straight face, because Chris Rose fucking lost it. Courtesy of Mallet Media:

In reality, it was just there to add to the lifting arm. I would argue they could have made it bigger, and Will Bales would have asked about a rake.

It did not work from the get-go, as HUGE hit the top armor on MadCatter, and also the butane tank that was there as a tribute to Gassy Cat, Sir Not-Appearing-in-this-Fight. MadCatter was able to counter though with a hit of its own, sending HUGE into the butane tank which exploded on impact. (Well, that’s probably not great.) Another hit and run and MadCatter had at least damaged one of the UMHW wheels, so it was a start as Calvin Iba kept throwing the cat in there, getting the HUGEpoon stuck in the wheels (though somehow taking out a light, so something from the top armor probably).

The hit and run was almost working, but it didn’t seem like the weapon was stopping, and it would be a suicide strategy otherwise for MadCatter. You could see it as the lifting arm and the harpoon went, getting ripped off. Combined with the flamethrower, it was definitely hurting on damage, and who knows if the weapon itself was working. But what about HUGE’s? It was spinning, sometimes, but was it Jonathan Schulz powering it down, or was it only intermittently working? HUGE isn’t going to win the pushing game, so if the former, that would be a risky strategy.

So the mid/late portion of this fight was Calvin Iba trying to push HUGE around and Jonathan Schulz playing matador, using the extent of thwackbot that HUGE has (its own pontoons) to go around the streaking MadCatter. Definitely ceding aggression points here,  but with a 4-1/5-0 in damage assured, HUGE played keep-away, spinning the weapon in the last second to assure the judges that yes, it was still there. A little bit on the later end, because it was spinning as they went back to the starting square, and the refs didn’t love that.

With that, HUGE wins by unanimous decision, and gets the most consistent of the 4WD vert meta, Witch Doctor, in their first quarterfinal.

(2) Riptide vs. (18) HyperShock
Welp, we’re all HyperShock fans here. And they brought out the big guns, a massive single disk configuration. All right Will, don’t fuck this up. We know this is the furthest HyperShock’s been since *checks notes* Season 2? Jesus Christ, seriously? How has this bot been this mercurial? And that’s coming from a place of love for the robot!

On the other hand, a robot that nobody is coming from a place of love for, Ribbot. Or at least, for the team. Ethan Kurtz’s response? “Fuck the haters.”

Yeah, I wish that was a paraphrase. But only one bot has knocked out everyone it’s faced. 5-0, 5 KOs, no one’s run the table AND KO’d everyone. Tombstone, Season 2? Judges’ decisions over Yeti and Beta. Bite Force? Their first fight in Season 3 against Blacksmith went the distance. Season 4? Yeti and HyperShock were JDs. But we’re talking that level of destruction, and Bite Force’s seemed to be surgical precision as opposed to the wholesale, absolutely give-no-fucks that Riptide have put on, for better, and definitely for worse.

HyperShock knows the plan. Get to the side or back, because nobody’s tested that on Riptide, and it’s lightly armored. Unfortunately, Will Bales turned a second too early, showing the side and the wheels. Yeah, that got damaged. And HyperShock got inverted. And sure, HyperShock can drive inverted, but it couldn’t get the time to gyro over, and Riptide was bearing down in the short corner. So he had to think fast. And, welp, this happened:

That would be HyperShock, inverted, running right into its weapon, spinning downward, colliding with Riptide’s, spinning upward. The combination of the two sent HyperShock into the ceiling, the first time (for real, no matter what Jake Ewert says) that’s ever happened.

Somehow, HyperShock was still working, but Riptide controlled the tempo and could shunt HyperShock around and take off both front wheels, and a chain, and HyperShock was dead in the corner in… about a minute. The usual.

Someone compared HyperShock to The King’s Afrikan Water Pistols in one of the groups, and knowing that they blew the lead they had to City of Men, complete with a loss to cede the race… oof. Though they said Will was more likable than Handsome Mikel. I mean, they didn’t use Hippospeak, but we do on this site when making footy references, dammit! Even if I don’t understand!

Riptide wins by KO to get to the quarterfinals the second year in a row, and we are now all Copperhead fans. In the post-show, Will mentioned the sport moving away from forks and towards “no-nonsense front ends.” I’d say the forks are being met by their anti-meta, wider weapons, like Riptide’s eggbeater and Minotaur and Copperhead’s drums. Or Manta, which won Robogames after being denied for BattleBots. Well, I don’t think they’ll be denied for WC8, though the weapon may need to be turned down from, if I’m reading the wiki correctly, 12,000 rpm. (It’s apparently scheduled to fight in the Proving Ground June 23-24, so if you’ve thought about Destruct-a-Thon, that might be a good time to go.)

So, seven fights left, but let’s break down the quarterfinals:

(1) Minotaur vs. (8) SawBlaze: A rematch of a WC6 fight card, where SawBlaze was easily able to scoop up Minotaur and deliver gashes to the underbelly.  It’s always a driving match, but this fight will go based on Jamison Go being able to get Minotaur corralled up. If there’s a bot that can upset the compact drumbots, it could be SawBlaze.

(4) Hydra vs. (28) Ribbot: A rematch of the 2-31 matchup last year, won by 31st seed Hydra. Ribbot’ll be going with its vert configuration, but can they get past the wedge of Hydra to get to the squishy bits?

(2) Riptide vs. (10) Copperhead: The 10th seeds have always been in the mix, but finally Copperhead joins retired older brother Poison Arrow in the quarterfinals, plus they have Rotator’s Blessing (currently 3/3). As compact as they come, they don’t have the same forks but can they keep themselves in front of Riptide?

(3) Witch Doctor vs. (6) HUGE: The queen of the longstanding 4WD vert meta takes on the bot that’s designed to be the anti-meta. How do the Gellatlys and co. deal with the bot that was designed to beat bots like theirs?

I’m not particularly good at the prediction end, so screw it, let the chips fall and we’ll see who goes up to the rafters. The good kind.

Once again, we’ll have a first-time champion, and we’ll see it all tonight!