Battlebots

"It's robot fighting time!"

"It's ROBOT FIGHTING TIME!" ― Faruuq Tauheed

Battlebots is a American robot combat television show where people build their own robots and compete with other peoples' robots to win the "Giant Nut" trophy. However, the robots that are seen in Battlebots are not what you think they look like.

Battlebots wasn't always a TV show, as it was originally made in Long Beach, California for the robots that competed in the American version of Robot Wars (a British TV show with a similar concept). Battlebots later became a TV show, first airing on Comedy Central in 2000 until it was cancelled in 2002. The show was later rebooted in 2015 on ABC. In 2018, the series was picked up by Discovery Channel on 2018 and is still airing on it today.

Why It Rocks

1. The fact that it's about people building their robots and making them fight each other is very cool.
2. A lot of good robots competed in the old and new series (e.g., Ziggo, Biohazard, Diesector, Tombstone, Minotaur, Son of Whyachi, Bite Force, etc).
3. Most of the fights are entertaining to watch.
4. A lot of great teams have competed in Battlebots (e.g., Hardcore Robots, Team Whyachi, Team Riobotz, etc).
5. A lot of great Battlebots personalities (e.g., Ray Billings, Donald Hutson, Carlo Bertocchini, Alexander Rose, etc).
6. Their YouTube channel posted fights that did not air in the 2018 series.
7. The third season of the BattleBots reboot was a huge improvement over the first two seasons (despite the fact that the first two seasons of the reboot were decent in their own right).
8. Several robots who competed in Robot Wars also showed up on Battlebots (e.g., Panic Attack, Bigger Brother, Mortis, Suicidal Tendencies, KillerHurtz, etc).

Bad Qualities

1. The first two seasons of the reboot were rather lackluster with unnecessary backstory and the episodes were quite short due to shortened fights. The wild cards for contestants felt rather unnecessary, too.
2. The judges don't always get things right.
3. Their YouTube channel isn't also the best when knowing what's fair use and what's not.
4. Some fights can be controversial and unfair:
   • For example, when Cobalt was about to get another hit on DUCK! (and yes, that robot is real), they got stuck on the Battlebox floor.
   • Lock-Jaw vs. Brutus is another example of this, as Brutus won despite the fact that Lock-Jaw had full control of the fight.
   • SawBlaze vs. Razorback was controversial for the same reason as Brutus vs. Lock-Jaw, as Razorback won despite SawBlaze having more control of the fight.
   • Hydra vs. HUGE was highly controversial, as Hydra obviously never fired off its weapon and pinned HUGE against the wall in the most unfair and dickish manner. Other teams, including HUGE, were rightfully angry about the decision.
   • Beta vs. Rotator was also controversial as, despite the fact that Rotator had an active weapon and even sheared off Beta's hammer, Beta somehow won because of better control. Beta was even pitted against two, obviously weaker robots just to secure their spot in the Round of 32 as an easy way out. At least their run met an early end against a far better robot known as Ribbot and, as a result of their incorrect configuration, they were completely humiliated and decimated by the froggy robot that did far better than its previous season.