Classic Era: Comedy Central seasons 1–5
Revival Era:
ABC seasons: 1 | 2
Discovery seasons: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
This is a page that will contain all BattleBots that participated in the earlier Comedy Central series. Unlike the ABC and Discovery versions, there were several different weight classes participating in the Tournaments: Lightweight, Middleweight, Heavyweight, and Super-Heavyweight.
Only the most notable bots will be covered here, including all finalists from all divisions:
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Lightweight Division
Backlash
Team: Team Nightmare
Team Captain and Driver: Jim Smentowski
Best known as Nightmare's little brother, Backlash was one of the first robots with a vertical spinning disk. Backlash won the first Lightweight Division, and was runner-up in the second.
- Junior Counterpart: Like we said, it's essentially a small version of Nightmare. It was a more successful competitor overall due to its better maneuverability offsetting its lack of armor.
- Spectacular Spinning: Backlash's vertical blade.
- The Worf Effect: Despite making a splash with two finals appearances and one tournament win during the first two seasons, Backlash saw its profile diminish in the last three Comedy Central seasons.
Big B
Team: Late Night Racing
Driver: Gary Gin
Finalist in Season 4, Big B is notorious for having only one fight aired by Comedy Central, and that is its loss in the finals against Ziggo. It is a parallelogram double wedge that can drive inverted, and Gary Gin is one of the best drivers, better known as the driver of Free Shipping.
- Boring, but Practical: Big B relied only on a pair of wedges and Gary Gin's driving to make it to the Season 4 finals.
- Out of Focus: Not even his semifinal win against Carnage Raptor was shown.
- Tempting Fate: Inverted. Before the fight begins, Bill Dwyer says that up until this point, no bot has ever gone the full 3 minutes against Ziggo. Big B proceeds to do just that.
Dr. Inferno Jr.
Team: Infernolab
Team Captain and Driver: Jason Bardis
Don't let this bot fool you. It may look clunky, and probably looks like it will get tipped over, but this bot is one of only two 2-time champions in the lightweight division. This Robot-with-a-toy-on-top has a very low center of gravity and an extremely low ground clearance. Despite the use of power tools as its weapons, the real weapon of this bot is its wedges that it uses to constantly smash opponents to the wall. Jason Bardis competed in the revival seasons with his new robot The Disk O' Inferno before becoming one of the show's judges.
- The Ace: Jason Bardis is an accomplished driver and is one of the reasons this bot is a two-time champion.
- An Arm and a Leg: One of the saws that Dr. Inferno Jr. uses was knocked off in the fight against Afterburner. Instead of repairing it, Jason Bardis puts a bandage covered in red ink where the "stump" of the arm is.
- Lethal Joke Character: It's an Omnibot
toy attached to a metal box, but it's a lot sturdier than it looks.
Mouser Mecha Catbot
Team: Team Catbot
Driver: Fon Davis
This bot has two weapons: a lifter that tosses bots to the side, instead of up, and a tail that strikes bots from overhead. Builder and driver Fon Davis became one of the show's judges in World Championship VII in 2023, replacing Jason Bardis.
- Cherry Tapping: The tail weapon isn't really that effective, and amounts to nothing more than this.
- Friend to All Children / Graceful Loser: Fon Davis was very courteous towards Andy Sauro after he lost against Slap 'Em Silly.
Raptor
Team: Team Raptor
Team Captain and Driver: Chuck Pitzer
The Raptor series of robots has participated in all 5 seasons of Battlebots while taking on different variations of the name. Alpha was able to reach the first Lightweight tournament finals, whereas Gamma reached the finals of Season 3. There is also a variation called Pack Raptors, which is essentially two separate Gamma Raptor bots, and participated in the Middleweight Tournament as a multibot. Pitzer competed in the revival seasons with a new Raptor robot called Ghost Raptor.
- Boring, but Practical: All Raptor bots during the Comedy Central era are simply boxes with lifting arms, leaving it to driving skills of Chuck Pitzer to advance in the tournament.
- Ludicrous Gibs: During the first season Lightweight Finals, Backlash tore through the back armor of Alpha Raptor and ended up spreading its robotic parts everywhere.
Sallad
"Team:' Team Sallad
Driver: Dallas Goecker
A simple flat bot on 4 wheels with a lifting arm.
- Boring, but Practical: Just a lifting arm.
- Sdrawkcab Name: Sallad is essentially Dallas's name backwards.
Slap 'Em Silly
Team: Team Fatcat
Team Captain and Driver: Andy Sauro
This bot was originally called Patriot and was sold to then 13-year old Andy Sauro before Season 4. Andy Sauro made one modification to this bot and that was to add a rear spike to the chassis. Slap 'Em Silly performed well in both Season 4 and 5, and before Season 5, Sauro made two other versions of this bot, competing in the Middleweight bracket as Slap 'Em Sillier.
- Boring, but Practical: A simple wedge with a rear spike. Thus Andy Sauro's driving skills allow this bot to advance during its tournaments.
- Flawless Victory: One of a few bots to pull off a unanimous 45-0 victory in Battlebots in a fight against Afterthought.
- Kid Hero: Andy Sauro was only 13 years old before he entered the Battlebots competition in Season 4.
Tentoumushi
Team: Robot Action League
Team Captain and Driver: Lisa Winter
Tentoumushi is a bot that uses a hard plastic shell to smother opponents and drag them to various hazards. While it never did well in all of its tournaments it participated in, the bot was more notable for who built and drove it: Lisa Winter, who was a teenager during the original Battlebots run. When Battlebots was revived on ABC, Lisa built a bigger version of this bot, called Mega Tento, which made a rather early exit in Season 2 of the revised program. Nowadays, Lisa still participates in Battlebots, this time as a judge.
- Animal Theme Naming: The name Tentoumushi is derived from Tentomushi, which is Japanese for Ladybug.
- Grapple Move: Tentoumushi uses a plastic shell to cover opponents and limit their movement. Ideally this shell would be used to drag opponents to the various floor hazards. The shell usually had either a hook or a sawblade as an offensive weapon (not that it helped the animal one bit).
- Kid Hero: Lisa Winter. Becomes Kid Hero All Grown-Up by the time the revival hits.
- My Nayme Is: See Animal Theme Naming.
Wedge Of Doom
Team: Team Delta
Team Captain and Driver: Tony Buchignani
Known as "Hazard's little brother", as both were driven by Tony Buchignani. Known for its simplistic wedge and lifting arm, Wedge of Doom's best season was in Season 5, making it all the way to the Lightweight finals.
- An Arm and a Leg: Its Season 3 iteration had a tendency to lose wheels.
- Boring, but Practical: A wedge with a lifting arm. That's it. But Tony Buchignani is an excellent driver and used these skills to advance far into the tournament.
Ziggo
Team: Team Ziggy
Team Captain and Driver: Jonathan Ritter
A full body spinner bot made from a steel wok, it was probably the most destructive Battlebot in the lightweight division. It was named after Jonathan Ritter's dead cat but also gained inspiration from the bot Blendo, of which Ritter copied the design from. It won both Lightweight finals during Season 2 and Season 4.
- An Arm and a Leg: Code:BLACK's low spinning blade was designed to get under Ziggo's spinning shell and sever its wheels, leading to Ziggo's loss in the first round during Season 5.
- Cast from Hit Points: This is probably Ziggo's biggest issue. Any direct hit on any bot will almost surely send Ziggo flying across the Battlebox. In fact, one hit during Season 1 launched it into the spike strip with such force that it became wedged under the Spike Strip. After losing the fight via knockout, a crowbar had to be used to free the stuck bot from the Spike Strip. In addition, Ziggo has been known to have its internals catch on fire after repeated hits.
- Mutual Kill: Two examples from Season 2.
- Subverted example- during the quarterfinals vs Afterthought 2.0, one hit from Ziggo not only knocked over Afterthought on its back, but the force of the hit forced it to get stuck under the hellraisers. Because both bots were technically incapacitated, Ziggo was not only freed from the hellraisers, but Afterthought was put back on its wheels and the match was forced to continue. No matter, Ziggo then proceeded to flip over Afterthought again without getting stuck and thus winning the match.
- A weirdly averted example- during the finals match against Backlash, it was able to knock Backlash on its side. However the impact with Backlash forced Ziggo onto the entrance ramp of the Battlebox where it became high-centered. While Backlash was being counted out, Ziggo was unable to move in which Backlash's driver Jim Smentowski argued that because of this, both bots should have been reset instead of Backlash being counted out. The judges decided that the knockout ruling should stand given that Backlash was given the knockout blow before Ziggo became high centered.
- Spectacular Spinning: It copied Blendo's design of a wok with blades attached spun by a very powerful motor. Like Blendo it almost got disqualified at the Long Beach 1999 event for its fast speed and for sending a piece of its opponent Hot Air out of the arena, but it was allowed to stay after Ritter lowered Ziggo's speed to 1500 RPM.
- There Is No Kill Like Overkill: While Ziggo was known for its surgical precision and Ritter's methodical driving, it was also famous for destroying or otherwise critically damaging its opponents. For instance, it obliterated Scrap Daddy LW 55 with just three hits in Season 2, the third of which left Scrap Daddy as a heap of twisted metal under a Pulverizer.
Middleweight Division
Ankle Biter
Team: Odin Robotics
Driver: John McKenzie
For the first 4 seasons, Ankle Biter was a simple wedge with a small saw in the middle. But because the saw was so ineffective during those 4 seasons, Season 5 had the wedge removed and the saw replaced by a much larger blade.
- Butt-Monkey: Couldn't even win a single fight from Seasons 1-4. In fact, this was a case of the Butt trope being part of the reason as it would often get stuck on its rear. This then gets subverted hard in Season 5 where it actually advances deep into the tournament.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Part of the reason why Ankle Biter lost so often was that its saw was so ineffective against other bots. For Season 5, it replaced its small saw and wedge with a much larger blade. However, this resulted in the bot not being able to operate inverted, something that it was able to do in its prior 4 seasons. Guess how Ankle Biter loses in season 5?
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: In season 5, he pushed The Master so hard into the spike strip that its wheel got impaled on the spikes, incapacitating it.
- Spectacular Spinning: Starting in Season 5, the large saw blade it uses.
- Took a Level in Badass: Aside from its redesign, how else do you explain Ankle Biter being such a terror during Season 5 when it previously couldn't even win a single fight?
Bad Attitude
Team: Team Attitude
Driver: Tom Petrucelli
Bad Attitude is a simple 4 wheeled bot with a wedge at the front. In later seasons, Tom would introduce a reverse wedge at the back so that the bot would resemble a parallelogram. It was known for its fast speed but little else.
- Boring, but Practical: Being a wedge bot (later a parallelogram wedge), it is more well known for its speed.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Constantly gets in trouble due to its speed. In one fight against Spaz, Bad Attitude tried to use his wedge to throw him against the wall, only to get himself stuck under the Spike Strip. In another battle against a fellow wedge, he could not get under the wedge and kept flipping himself on his wedge continuously.
- Lightning Bruiser: Probably one of the fastest bots in the middleweight division.
- This Is Gonna Suck: When pitted against Complete Control in the Quarterfinals of Season 4, Tom Petrucelli mentioned that he felt that he was going to "get some air".
Buddy Lee Don't Play On The Street
Team: Team Fembot
Team Captain and Driver: Nola Garcia
Despite its toy-like appearance, this bot is a simple ramming bot that was very durable. While it won only two fights, this bot was more well known as to how it won its second fight against Turbo during Season 2.
- Cute Bruiser: After its win via Judges' Decision against Turbo, the audience clearly did not like the decision and the hosts claim Buddy only won because of its cuteness, completely ignoring the fact that Turbo's drivetrain broke and should have been counted out via knockout.
- Determinator: This was notable during its fight with Turbo, a full body spinner. Despite the fact that Turbo did a lot of damage to Buddy, Buddy still went on the attack against Turbo. With 1 minute remaining in the bout, savvy viewers will note that Turbo stops all motion as all the ramming from Buddy disabled its drivetrain. Neither Nola Garcia nor the referees notice that Turbo had stopped moving, and Buddy kept attacking, getting damaged in the process. The match went the full three minutes, and the judges were certainly paying attention to Turbo's locomotion issues, awarding Buddy the victory via Judges' decision.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Had Nola Garcia noticed that Turbo had stopped moving halfway through the match, she could have held Buddy back while Turbo would be counted out. Instead, she kept attacking and the accumulated damage would play a part in its defeat against Spaz.note
- Lethal Joke Character: Buddy Lee looked like a fire truck piloted by a My Buddy doll, but the fire truck shell actually hid a well armored battering ram robot. The robot made a surprisingly deep run in season 2, making it to the middleweight quarterfinals.
- Stone Wall: The fact that this bot is heavily armored is highlighted by how well it stood up against Turbo.
Chiabot
Team: Robot Action League
Team Captain: Will Wright
Driver: Cassidy Wright
Built by Will Wright, the creator of the Sim Series of games, and driven by his daughter Cassidy, Chiabot was one of the most unusual robots in the entire middleweight field. The robot was covered in fake plants, sported a vertical saw as a weapon, and was usually accompanied by minibots that were deployed from its chassis. Chiabot competed in all five seasons of Battlebots, but never got especially far. The robot competed as Super Chiabot in season 2 to reflect some upgrades the Wrights made to its design, but it reverted to its original name for the remaining three seasons.
- Awesome, but Impractical: Chiabot had an eyecatching design and its minibot deployment method was innovative, but wasn't especially effective in a combat setting.
- Mini-Me: The minibots were miniature Chiabots complete with their own planter topping, and they were never a significant part of any match.
- Wrestler in All of Us: Was on the receiving end of what was a effectively a robotic suplex from Complete Control in Season 2, wherein Chiabot was lifted entirely perpendicular from the Battlebox. This moment was later implemented into the show's title sequence.
Complete Control
Team: Mission Destruction
Team Captain and Driver: Derek Young
This bot had lifting forks with a clamp and was designed to lift other bots to either flip over, or to carry them to the Battlebox hazards. It was a finalist during the 4th season, losing to Hazard. Young had previously competed with the walking pickaxe robot Pressure Drop. He later brought a revamped Complete Control to the revival series before retiring from robot combat and becoming one of the show's judges.
- Ass Kicks You: In the Season 4 final, Derek Young reinforced the rear plate on Complete Control in an effort to push Hazard around, and would spend the majority of the fight facing backward to absorb the damage from Hazard's blade. It didn't work.
- Fragile Speedster: This bot is quite fast (as highlighted in its Finals match against Hazard. However, because of the complexity of the lifting equipment, the bot itself is not armored very well. Hazard exploited this in their match by removing the rear panel which was reinforced specifically for this match, then proceeded to dismantle Complete Control soon afterwards.
- Ludicrous Gibs: Was completely torn to pieces by Hazard during the finals. Only the clamp part of the lifting mechanism was still working at the end.
- Wrestler in All of Us: The robotic version of this trope, as it was designed to lift, flip, and drop bots as a form of offense.
Deadblow
Team: Imahara Robotics
Driver: Grant Imahara
Deadblow is a hammerbot who found its greatest success in the first season as a finalist. As the seasons progressed however, newer designs meant that Deadblow would never be able to compete at the level of its contemporaries. After the fifth season, it was used by Grant Imahara as a "robotic assistant" during his tenure at MythBusters. After Imahara died in 2020, the Battlebots Best Design award was renamed in his memory.
- Cherry Tapping: The hammer is very quick to deploy and was designed to administer multiple hits in a short amount of time. Hilariously, during its fight against Alien Gladiator, Grant used the hammer so much that the arm itself fell off due to metal fatigue. And during its match against Pressure Drop, Deadblow connected for 112 hits! Granted, the hammer isn't designed to do a lot of damage.
- Worf Effect: Suffered from this after the first season as newer designs basically exploited the flaws of this bot.
El Diablo
Team: Team Diablo
Driver: Zach Bieber
El Diablo competed in the 2nd season where he ended up as a finalist. He also competed in the 4th and 5th seasons. Team Diablo also created El Diablo Grande, essentially a larger version of El Diablo. This bot used a spinning drum as a weapon and used two treads to move around. Driver and builder Zach Bieber later competed with Razorback on the first two revival seasons.
- Achilles' Heel: While the two treads allow for increased mobility, they are easily cut by other bots with blades or are cut by killsaws. When this happens and the tread snaps, El Diablo loses mobility and is essentially crippled. This is a factor in all of its losses in the competition. However, after it's drum was knocked out in the fight against Hazard, it wasn't going to win, no matter what.
- Disqualification-Induced Victory: Was supposed to face off against The Master in the 2nd season semifinals, but The Master ended up forfeiting after one of its motors blew.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Well, the name means "The Devil", after all.
- Spectacular Spinning: The spinning drum it uses as a weapon.
Hazard
Team: Team Delta
Team Captain and Driver: Tony Buchignani
One of two 3-time winners in the Comedy Central era, this bot was known to completely dismantle other bots by use of its spinning blade, which spun so fast that it was essentially a blur. For the longest time, this bot went undefeated until the semifinals of Season 5 where it suffered its first and only loss to T-Minus. It was the "larger brother" of Wedge of Doom.
- The Dreaded: Every bot that goes up against Hazard has pretty much resigned themselves to be Hazard's next victim as very few had an actual counter for the spinning blade. The only one who did have a counter ended up not only beating Hazard, but also winning the tournament. The reason why this bot is so feared is that unlike its fellow 3-time champion BioHazard, losing to this bot usually meant your bot would be utterly destroyed in the process.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: The spinning bar actually played a part in its defeat, as T-Minus was able to use its lifter to lift one of Hazard's protective skirts into the path of its own blade. This caused the blade to stop and Hazard to spin out of control. T-Minus would then promptly flip Hazard onto its back, giving it is only loss by knockout.
- Lightning Bruiser: Despite the spinning blade, Hazard was also known to be a fast bot as well. This is exemplified by its finals match against Complete Control, in which Hazard would drive away from Complete Control in an effort to control the fight. It worked, and after removing a reinforced wedge from Complete Control's backside, Hazard then proceeded to obliterate his opponent for the win.
- Ludicrous Gibs: Inflicted this on almost every single bot it came up against.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: A weird case as it did not compete in Season 2, likely because Tony Buchignani wanted to concentrate on Wedge of Doom and War Machine.
Huggy Bear
Team: The Bot Dudes
Team Captain and Driver: Dave Schultz
This unusual bot is shaped like an H in which the area between two arms of the H is used to clamp to other bots to bring to the Hazards.
- Mighty Glacier: It's big and it's also very slow. But that's the point of this robot, to make them come to Huggy Bear to be clamped and dragged around the Battlebox.
- Unusual Weapon Mounting: Its clamping assembly is essentially this. Previously there were two clamps, one on each side of the H, but one was removed to save weight and therefore the one side of the H was reinforced so that the remaining clamp can be used with it.
Little Drummer Boy
Team: Team Dangerous Drums
Driver: Steve Buescher
Little Drummer Boy burst on to the Middleweight scene by advancing directly to the finals in Season 3 against Hazard. Since then it had made appearances during the subsequent two seasons and was renamed Aneurysm after the Comedy Central era concluded.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: During its fight against Turtle in Season 5, Turtle got high-centered in the middle of the arena. Little Drummer Boy did free Turtle, only to lose in a close decision from the judges.
- She Cleans Up Nicely: Its season 3 appearance is quite ugly, while its season 4 and 5 appearances had it look a whole lot better.
- Spectacular Spinning: Its spinning drum. Unlike El Diablo, there is only a double bar on the drum, designed to pop his opponents upwards.
S.O.B.
Team: Sony Online Entertainment
Team Captain and Driver: Rich Sjolberg
This bot is probably the only example of a bot not only sponsored by a company directly but where the driver is also an employee, in this case Sony Online Entertainment. S.O.B. actually made its first appearance in Season 4, but issues with the design of the bot meant that it only fought in one battle in the preliminary rounds and lost. It was completely redesigned for Season 5 and shocked the middleweight bracket by advancing all the way to the finals against T-Minus, where it lost. As for the bot, it was in an unusual design of a dustpan, used to trap opponents while an overhead saw blade would be used to damage the enemy. It was quite effective and was an inspiration behind Sawblaze, which competes in the current Discovery Channel era.
- Didn't See That Coming: The team tends to change saw blades after every encounter. Problem is, due to the bracketing in their division, they ended up fighting in nine matches whereas in other brackets, they would have fought in eight. They were not expecting to make it to the Finals, and during preparations for this match they found that they had exhausted their supply of saw blades. Thus, they had to choose the least damaged blade in their Finals match against T-Minus.
- Didn't Think This Through: The wheels on S.O.B. are located towards the rear of the bot, meaning that the bot could get high centered in certain parts of the arena, which it almost did when it went up against Wrath Jr. Even worse, S.O.B. only lost in the finals when the tip of the front right corner of the bot was resting on the spike strip which was just enough to have all 4 wheels off the ground. After the Comedy Central show ended, the bot was re-engineered to have two wheels at the front, driven by belts from the back.
- Fun with Acronyms: S.O.B. stands for Sony Online Bot but everyone else thought it stood for something else.
- Graceful Loser: Rich Sjolberg would mention in the interview after the Season 5 finals that they never expected to go all the way that season, and were okay with losing to T-Minus especially after the latter bot had defeated Hazard.
- Product Placement: This bot is basically a walking advertisement for Rich Sjolberg's employer, Sony Online Entertainment.
- Sleep Deprivation: Rich Sjolberg would document how after their fight against Twin Paradox, the bot had to be rebuilt as many components were burnt out. The crew had to work around the clock throughout the night to get their bot ready for their next match against T-Wrex the next day and had exactly 1 hour of sleep between this time. By the time they made it to the finals, they were running solely on adrenaline.
- Tempting Fate: Inverted. After S.O.B.'s frustrating exit in season 4, Rich Sjolberg mentioned that he just wanted to make it out of the preliminary rounds to make at least one televised match as part of Product Placement for his employer. They ended up making the finals.
Spaz
Team: Team Vicious
Team Captain and Driver: Mike Regan
This two-wheeled bot is essentially a thwackbot, basically, a bot that spins around with an axe designed to hit opponents whenever they get too close. It won the Season 2 middleweight championship, albeit with some controversy.
- Born Lucky: Spaz won its semifinal and finals matches due to issues with the other team's driving. In the semifinals, Spaz was being tossed around by Bad Attitude, only for Bad Attitude to pin itself under the spike strip and getting counted out. In the finals, El Diablo ended up severing one of his treads on the killsaws and was a factor in Spaz winning the championship. The audience was not very happy to see this bot win the middleweight championship that year.
- Crippling Overspecialization: While other thwackbots have some sort of secondary weapon (usually a wedge), Spaz does not and can only rely on spinning its axe to achieve some points in the matchup.
- Spectacular Spinning: When it comes to thwackbots, this is its schtick, in which the entire body spins around in an effort to hit its opponent with its axe. However, thwackbots aren't really that effective in Robot Combat, which is one of the reasons you see less of them in later seasons.
Turtle
Team: Team Nightmare
Driver: Sam Steyer/Jim Smentowski
Turtle has a rather interesting history. It was originally named Turtle Roadkill, and built by Tom Petrucelli, the same person who built Bad Attitude. It was built for Sam Steyer as his personal combat robot. However, during Season 4, Sam Steyer had a personal emergency and could not compete in the tournament. Because Tom Petrucelli already had one middleweight battlebot he was competing with, Jim Smentowski was approached as Team Nightmare did not have a middleweight at the time. Smentowski agreed and after Season 4, he bought Turtle Roadkill outright from Sam Steyer. Renamed Turtle, the entire bot was reworked and prepped for Season 5 where it made it to the semifinals, losing to S.O.B.
- Failed a Spot Check: What caused Turtle's issues in his loss to S.O.B. Jim Smentowski failed to notice that the rear corner of Turtle was so banged up that it was scraping on the floor. Given the amount of debris on the Battlebox floor, it caused Turtle to get stuck several times, opening the bot up to constant attacks from S.O.B.
- Lean and Mean: The maximum weight for a Middleweight is 120 pounds. For Season 5, Turtle clocked in at 87 pounds.
- Lightning Bruiser: Turtle uses its speed as a means to attack any robot.
- Stone Wall: After Team Nightmare took over the 'bot, they gutted it and upgraded the armor and drivetrain. Despite the upgrades, it was still 33lbs underweight. Due to the upgraded armor, it was able to defeat 3 powerful vertical spinners in a row in season 5note , though the damage caught up with it and caused it to repeatedly become high-centered during the fight with S.O.B.
T-Minus
Team: Inertia Labs
Driver: Alexander Rose
Inertia Labs second Combat robot, it is a flipper also known for its acrobatic flips whenever it tries to self-right. Inertia Labs is also the creator behind its bigger brothers, Matador and Toro. A popular Battlebot in the Middleweight bracket, it made the quarterfinals in its first two seasons before winning the tournament in Season 5, defeating the previously undefeated 3-time Middleweight Champion Hazard in the process.
- Born Unlucky: How it lost both its matches in Season 3 and 4. In Season 3, it took a rather light blow from a T-Wrex (a thwackbot) that knocked out its receiver. In Season 4, while flipping Heavy Metal Noise, its spinning disk grazed an internal part of the lifter assembly, triggering its Failsafe Failure and rendering it immobile.
- Crazy-Prepared: How Inertia Labs came prepared for the fight against Hazard; one of its lifting arms had a long attachment at the end of the arm, designed to get under Hazard while still allowing the bot to stay away from its dangerous spinning blade. It worked.
- Defeating the Undefeatable: Did this for Hazard in Season 5 and went on to win the Middleweight tournament that season.
- Failsafe Failure: The Flipper for T-Minus was designed so that the wheels of the bot would not move when the flipper was on its "up" position. But when the disc of Heavy Metal Noise grazed an internal part of the lifter on T-Minus while being flipped, the flipper became stuck in the "up" position, meaning that T-Minus could no longer be moved and therefore was counted out.
- Technician vs. Performer: During Seasons 3 and 4, T-Minus was known for its acrobatic flips whenever it landed on its back. These flips were so impressive (with rotation as much as 540 degrees) that this bot became an instant crowd hit. During Season 5, however, the power of the flipper was lessened in order to add more armor to the bot. It still could flip other bots, but no longer was able to do those acrobatic flips it was famous for.
T-Wrex
Team: Regan Designs
Driver: Brent Regan
Another thwackbot, this one had a better design than Spaz, and was probably one of the most popular thwackbots during the Comedy Central era, due to Brent Regan making design changes that allowed for more utility that most thwackbots were not known for.
- Crippling Overspecialization: Averted. Unlike most thwackbots, which solely relied on spinning in place to generate its attacks, T-Wrex also attacked some sloped spikes to the other end of the robot, with the spikes also acting as a wedge. As such, Brent Regan can use his driving capabilities to push the other robot around if needed. Even its arm attachment had some utility in it, as seen below.
- Expy: To Spaz, which was the Season 2 middleweight champion.
- Logical Weakness: The angled spike can usually get this bot into trouble as emphasized when it lost by knockout in both Seasons 4 and 5. In both cases, the lower part of the spike usually gets snagged on the spike strip, rendering it immobile and causing it to lose via knockout.
- Punny Name: Its name is a take on the Tyrannosaurus Rex.
- Spectacular Spinning: The spike on its arm attachment had two utilities, as it was sloped with one end touching the ground. As such, if the bot is spinning in one direction, the spike can be used as a regular spike to hit opponents, while if the bot is spinning in the other direction, the spike acts as a wedge that can toss some opponents around.
Heavyweight Division
BioHazard
Team: Team BioHazard
Driver: Carlo Bertocchini
The other three-time Battlebots champion during the Comedy Central era, BioHazard is also one of the most successful combat robots ever. With its low profile and unique lifting arm, Carlo Bertocchini's engineering masterpiece dominates battles and leaves its opponents with no chance to counter-attack.
- The Ace: A 22-2 win/loss record and three championship wins across 5 seasons during the Comedy Central era and never placing any lower than the quarter-finals should speak for itself. Aside from its low-slung design, this is also due to Carlo Bertocchini being a superb driver. It isn't as feared as its fellow 3-time champion Hazard as, unlike the middleweight bot, losing to this bot was usually through a Judge's decision, and any knockouts suffered were usually due to being flipped over and not because your bot was completely destroyed.
- An Arm and a Leg: While BioHazard managed to upend Mechavore during their quarterfinals match, Mechavore managed to shear off BioHazard's arm. As Carlo put it: it was a "bad way to win".
- Logical Weakness: BioHazard relies on its design to avoid damage and shut down lifters and wedges, and as such spinners that can actually hit the thing will give it trouble. Nightmare gave BioHazard a nasty shock by hurling it clear across the Battlebox, and Son of Whyachi nearly knocked it out entirely before proceeding to win by judge's decision. This also contributed to BioHazard's ultimate retirement: when spinners started becoming more powerful after the Comedy Central series ended, BioHazard just couldn't keep up, resulting in it getting thrashed hard enough by Megabyte and Brutality to be completely written off.
- Pint-Sized Powerhouse: BioHazard measures only 4 inches (10 cm) tall, making it one of the flattest heavyweights ever, yet can effortlessly lift its opponents and shove them around.
- Stone Wall: BioHazard's lifting arm is not built to destroy robots, but what it lacks in damage output it makes up for by being nigh-on impossible to actually attack for robots at the time. Its flat frame means a lot of weapons flat-out miss, and combined with its side skirts meant that almost nothing could get underneath it. As such, BioHazard was free to completely manhandle opponents with its lifting arm until they couldn't self-right anymore or until time ran out.
- Understatement: Carlo Bertocchini is known for these. Upon winning his third championship against Voltronic via knockout, all he had to say was this:That wasn't too hard.
Blendo
Team: M5 Industries
Driver: Jamie Hyneman
The very first full-body spinner and one of the most influential robots in early robot combat, Blendo's spinning shell had a top speed of 80mph and a spin speed of 500rpm, making it one of the most destructive robots of its day. The robot is probably best known for who built and drove it: Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage, who later became the hosts of Mythbusters.
- The Dreaded: The first such case in robot combat, causing carnage that hadn't been seen in the nascent sport before it arrived on the scene.
- Glory Days: By the time BattleBots made its way to television, Blendo's time as one of the more feared robots in the field was nearing a close. Robots had begun to be built specifically to counter it, much like what happened to Tombstone 20 years later. Other full-body spinners like Mauler 5150, Phrizbee, and the smaller Ziggo improved on the full-body spinner design and wound up seeing success. Blendo, on the other hand, never won a single fight on the Comedy Central show.
- Person of Mass Destruction: In the 1995 Robot Wars competition in San Francisco, the organizers asked Hyneman to withdraw Blendo from competition after it launched pieces of another robot out of the arena. Blendo was declared co-champion of that event. The same thing happened in 1997, and it was given a special award that is the predecessor of the Most Destructive Robot award.
- Spectacular Spinning: The first-ever full body spinner. To get it spinning, Hyneman inserted a power drill into the top of Blendo to manually start its internal combustion motor.
Hexadecimator
Team: Team WhoopAss
Team Captain and Driver: Tim Paterson
A robot armed with a pneumatic flipper. Team WhoopAss also had a smaller version of this bot competing in the Lightweight division as Hexy Jr.
- Ludicrous Gibs: This bot tends to get torn apart by spinners.
- Victory Pose: When it is about to win via knockout, it leaves its arm upright and spins in place.
Matador
Team: Inertia Labs
Driver: Reason Bradley
The third combat robot created by Inertia Labs. It competed in only two seasons, but this design is one which their Discovery-Era robot Bronco is based on. Initially, this was a four-wheeled robot, but two wheels were later removed to add armor instead.
- Achilles' Heel: Aside from its wheels being a weakpoint in Season 4, it also is unable to handle being tipped over on its side, which is what happened in its loss against Warhead.
- Actually Pretty Funny: After getting all its wheels taken off by MOE, Reason Bradley could only laugh at the carnage inflicted on his bot.note
- An Arm and a Leg: Lost all four wheels in a battle against MOE.note
Mechavore
Team: Team Shrapnel
Team Captain and Driver: Robert Marzinske
A four-wheeled bot with a spinning disc powered by a gas motor. It has the unfortunate reputation of being able to chew through the walls of the Battlebox with ease.
- Defeating the Undefeatable: It's biggest claim to fame, when it took on 2 time champ Vlad The Impaler and ripped it apart so severely, the bot was retired.
- Spectacular Spinning: Its spinning disc.
- Trash the Set: Its blade is so powerful it chewed through multiple layers of lexan on the Battlebox walls twice.
MOE
Team: Team Extreme
Team Captain: Norman Muzzy
Driver: Neal Muzzy
Introduced during Season 2, MOE was initially treated more of a joke character, not really able to cause damage while simultaneously being torn apart. While Season 3 saw some improvements in its armor, Season 4 is where it started to really shine, where it destroyed a lot of bots before being defeated by Overkill in the Quarterfinals. Aside from the evolution of this bot, MOE is probably best known for inspiring the future robot Tombstone.
- Fun with Acronyms: MOE was named after the family dog, but actually stands for Marvel Of Engineering.
- Joke Character: Its first iteration had lexan armor and a spring loaded spike which turned out to be quite ineffective. After its loss, Team Extreme stripped out all the critical components and tossed the lexan armor into the trash. But when approached to participate in the Rumbles, they retrieved the lexan shell, stuffed it with trash, and entered that into the rumble, where it was mercilessly torn apart by the other robots.
- Ludicrous Gibs: As a result of the trash-stuffed lexan shell being torn apart during the Rumble.
- Spectacular Spinning: Its spinning weapons introduced since Season 3.
- Took a Level in Badass: Team Extreme has made improvements since their debut in Season 2. For Season 3, they did away with the lexan armor, replacing it with steel, and adding a ditch cutter as its primary weapon. Season 4 did away with the ditch cutter and replacing it with a double-plated steel bar. Season 5 increased the size of the bar itself and was redesigned to that the bar would hit the same height regardless if it drives right-side up and inverted. This paid off in Season 4 where they put on a display of destroying their opponents, most notably, Matador.
Nightmare
Team: Team Nightmare
Team Captain and Driver: Jim Smentowski
Jim Smentowski's deadly disc of destruction needs no introduction. A fixture of Battlebots since 1999, Nightmare is known as much for its devastating vertical spinning disc as its extreme frailty. When it enters the Battlebox, bits of metal will be sent flying; the only question is from whom.
- An Arm and a Leg: When Nightmare loses through damage, it's probably due to losing its exposed wheels. Mauler tore one clean off, Warhead took it up a notch and destroyed the drive motor along with the wheel, and Son of Whyachi removed both wheels along with a motor.
- The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: At the 1999 Long Beach event, Nightmare had to run its disc inverted after its first fight because it was launching bits of shrapnel over the walls. This wasn't as much of a problem in later fights due to the Battlebox having a roof... until its season 5 rumble, where one of Nightmare's teeth punched straight through the roof and landed in the audience (no one was seriously hurt, thankfully).
- Glass Cannon: Nightmare's weapon was easily one of the most frightening in the competition, capable of tearing through armor like a knife through warm butter. However, that weapon is only supported by a spindly three-wheeled frame that's also very top-heavy, to say nothing of the horrendous recoil. For each win earned by splattering an opponent, Nightmare loses a fight to either a spinner or a lifter (namely BioHazard), meaning it never does well in competition.
- Mutual Kill: During its battle against SlamJob, a hit from Nightmare launched SlamJob onto its back in an explosion of parts and debris. While SlamJob was effectively incapacitated after that hit, Nightmare himself suffered some significant damage. One of its drive motors broke from the impact, and the threads in his weapon motor were destroyed. In addition, the impact knocked loose Nightmare's battery pack, meaning that Nightmare was also incapacitated. In light of this double KO, the match went to the judges who awarded Nightmare the victory on the basis of the hit itself.
- One-Hit Kill: While it was able to give one to SlamJob, during the next match against Son of Whyachi, it had this done to him. Said impact not only knocked off both wheels and their motors, but caused significant damage to Nightmare's frame and weapon motor.
- Spectacular Spinning: Need we say more? In this case, however, the speed of the disc tends to lead to gyroscopic issues that the frame of this bot isn't able to handle.
- Trash the Set: The shrapnel launched by Nightmare's disc often takes a toll on the Battlebox itself. Over the course of the series, Nightmare has:
- Taken out a camera by severing the wires leading to it with debris from Junkyard Offspring.
- Torn a gash into the floor when Panic Attack lifted its rear end.
- Tore another big gash in the floor after Son of Whyachi flipped it.
- Smashed several overhead lights, again with bits of Junkyard Offspring.
- As mentioned above, ripped a hole in the roof during its season 5 rumble, forcing the rest of the scheduled rumbles to be cancelled for health and safety reasons.
Overkill
Team: Team CoolRobots
Team Captain and Driver: Christian Carlberg
A simple two wheeled robot with a wedge and an overhead blade. A fixture for all 5 seasons of the Comedy Central era, it proved to be a very durable bot with Christian Carlberg being an accomplished driver. Its best run came during the 4th season in which Overkill defeated 3 powerful robots with horizontal spinners en route to a finals match with eventual winner Biohazard. Carlberg, who also created the superheavyweight Minion, has appeared on several teams on the revival series, most notably for his own robot OverDrive and later as part of the team behind Yeti.
- Boring, but Practical: Wedge with overhead blade. These weapons do not do much damage so Christian Carlberg relies on his driving skills to defeat his opponents. In season 4, he did this to three powerful bots with horizontal spinners.
- Not the Intended Use: The blade had several circular cutouts and was itself very sturdy. Perhaps unintentionally in season 4, Overkill used these blades to stop the spinning disks of Mechavore, MOE, and Surgeon General, ultimately winning in all three battles.
Slam Job
Team: Team BlackRoot
While SlamJob was not a successful bot in the Heavyweight division, it is more known for how it lost against Nightmare during Season 3. Clips of its defeat were shown repeatedly during Comedy Central's 3rd and 4th seasons.
- Attack Its Weak Point: Of a sort. The weapon shaft that connected the weapon to the robot turned out to be the strongest part of the bot. When Nightmare hit it, it not only launched SlamJob onto its back so violently, it also broke parts on both bots.
- Butt-Monkey: Could never get any respect from the announcers whatsoever as any mention of this bot would inevitably lead to scenes of its destruction against Nightmare.
- Ludicrous Gibs: Just look at the explosion of parts after Nightmare's hit.
Surgeon General
Team: Team Loki
Team Captain and Driver: Julio Roquetta
A simple 2-wheeled bot with a powerful spinning disc. Its best run was in Season 4 where it reached the Semifinals, losing against Overkill.
- An Arm and a Leg: Did this to Frostbite in season 4, tearing off two wheels. It also did this to Killerhurtz, tearing off a drive wheel as it tore into the bot. In season 2, in a unaired fight, it had this happen to it when a disc-to-disc hit with Nightmare caused Surgeon General's disc to disintegrate.
- Not the Intended Use: During its match against Hexadecimator, it drove up against Hexadecimator's wedge and landed on its rear end, where it became immobilized. As it was being counted out, it not only accelerated and decelerated its wheels, but its spinner kept powering up and down. These gyroscopic forces eventually knocked the bot back onto its two wheels, where it then proceeded to tear huge chunks out of Hexadecimator, winning the match.
- Spectacular Spinning: Its spinning disc. During its match against Frostbite, a collision between the two bots not only severed two of Frostbite's wheels, but also popped the disc loose in a manner that it continued to spin while separated from its bot for almost a minute.
Tazbot
Team: Mutant Robots
Team Captain and Driver: Donald Hutson
Mutant Robots' heavyweight entry is known for its unique design—it's a wheeled base with a 360° rotating turret on top. The turret moves independent of the base, and is armed with a long pickaxe for both striking and lifting.- Awesome, but Impractical: Tazbot is pretty much the coolest looking of all Battlebots in the Heavyweight division. Only problem is that the turret head isn't very strong and the lifting fork attached to the turret has very little strength to it. It isn't surprising that this bot hasn't made it past the semifinals.
- Stone Wall: Tazbot's armor was tough and its design allowed it to self-right from just about any angle, making the robot hard to KO. On the other hand, its weapon was more for utility than doing damage or flipping other bots.
Vlad The Impaler
Team: Team Vladmeisters
Driver: Gage Cauchois
Simple in design, lethal in efficiency. Driven by Gage Cauchois, Vlad was a fixture of the 2000's scene, and a champion during Comedy Central's first season. It also was a finalist in Season 2. While the initial version was retired after season 3, a new version was built for Season 5, in which it copied the design of its bigger brother, Vladiator.- Boring, but Practical: Vlad isn't the most dynamic bot to look at, basically being a metal box with a lifter up front. That basic design snagged it a Giant Nut during Season 1.
- Career-Ending Injury: After being utterly ripped apart by Mechavore, this iteration was promptly retired after Season 3. Gage Cauchois would eventually build a second version of Vlad The Impaler for Season 5, this time based on Vladiator's design.
- Determinator: While it did lose to Mechavore and was nearly cut in half horizontally, it forced a judges decision, being still working and only lost a close 21-24 decision.
- Product Placement: Vlad sported large, prominent logos for Loctite super-glue on both of its sides for seasons 2, 3, and 5.
Voltarc/Voltronic
Team: Team Voltronic
Driver: Stephen Felk
A large wedge bot with a lifting arm, this bot was known as Voltarc in Season 1, before being called Voltronic from Season 2 onwards. It reached the finals in both the first and fifth seasons.- Arch-Enemy: Vlad the Impaler. Voltronic fought him twice during the Comedy Central era, losing both times. Prior to Comedy Central, Voltarc also fought Vlad the Impaler, losing as well.
- Butt-Monkey: Emphasis on Butt. During its finals match during the fifth season, Biohazard effectively upended Voltronic in a way that it sat on its rear end, immobilizing him and knocking him out. It also didn't help that the finals match was the only televised match for Voltronic that season, not to mention the first televised matchup since Season 3.
- Didn't Think This Through: For all of Stephen Felk's driving ability, some design decisions made on its bot ultimately resulted in its losses.
- In Season 1, a hinged scoop was added so that Voltarc could drive backwards and push the opponent around in the rear. But during the finals of season 1, Voltarc was flipped on its back in a way that the hinged scoop got in the way of any sort of recovery.
- In Season 2, Voltronic added a self righting mechanism, but it wasn't designed well enough and caused problems when Vlad the Impaler left him against the spike strip.
- The bot could drive inverted because the wheels were large enough to come out of top and bottom of the robot. For some reason however, Stephen Felk put wheel guards at the top of the robot, thus removing any ability to drive inverted and thus relying on a proper self-righting mechanism, neither which worked in the first two seasons.
- While the wheel guards were removed in Season 5, and it could drive inverted, it still had a design that had a flat rear end, and that's how Voltronic ended up in the Season 5 finals against Biohazard. As Stephen Felk put it:
You dumb enough to design a robot that gets stuck on its ass, you get what you deserve in this sport, buddy. - Meaningful Rename: The reason Stephen Felk renamed Voltarc to Voltronic was because the former name was the same as a lighting company, and said company served a cease-and-desist on the use of the former name.
- Obvious Rule Patch: During its first season match with Biohazard, Voltarc's lifting arm got caught in the wheelwell of Biohazard. This allowed Voltarc's lifting arm to carry Biohazard around the Battlebox and win by constantly dragging him to the hazards. At the time, the rules specified that a robot could only pin a robot against a wall for a limited amount of time, it did not take into account a robot that used a lifting arm to immobilize another bot. After Season 1, the rules were modified so that a robot that had clamped or lifted another bot could only do so for 30 seconds after which the other robot had to be released. This rule had the added benefit of dealing with bots that ended up stuck to each other.
- Out of Focus: During the 5th season, it received its only airtime during the Heavyweight finals. Even its semifinals match against Overkill was not shown in full.
Super-Heavyweight Division
Atomic Wedgie
Team: Team Half-Life
Team Captain and Driver: Robert Everhart
A large wedge that uses 4 treads as movement, two on each side of the wedge so that the bot can drive inverted. While it does have a saw weapon, Atomic Wedgie prefers to fight with its wedge. It made the finals of Season 2, where it lost to Diesector.- Agony of the Feet: Being a treaded bot, it consistently suffers damage to its treads resulting in locomotion problems during its fights.
- Born Lucky: How it managed to reach the finals of Season 2.
- It won against Minion (then the defending champ) when poor driving from Minion basically flipped itself on its back.
- Toro was throwing Atomic Wedgie like a ragdoll during their match until one of the zip ties securing Toro's batteries broke and incapacitated the bot.
- While it was being dominated by Revision Z, it was being done so because Revision Z's flexible tail kept getting stuck in one of Atomic Wedgie's tri-foils and that Revision Z would pull Atomic Wedgie to the hazards. Given that the rules stated that no entrapment devices were allowed during matches, the judges would award Atomic Wedgie the victory as a result.
Diesector
Team: Mutant Robots
Team Captain and Driver: Donald Hutson
Mutant Robots' best known bot and a 2-time champion, winning in both seasons 2 and 5. It has a multitude of weapons, but it is best known for the jaws that adorn the front of the bot, similar to the Jaws of Life. Hutson created Lock-Jaw, with which he competes to this day on the current revival series, as a Expy to Diesector.- The Ace: Unlike Tazbot, Donald Hutson is scary good with this bot, with his driving ability combined with the weapons he uses.
- Crazy-Prepared: Being a Swiss-Army Weapon, Diesector is prepared for any contingency. However, this is best exemplified during its match against Final Destiny. Knowing that this bot was essentially a large version of Hazard, Donald Hutson made critical changes to Diesector, notably removing both hammer arms, adding a plow to the rear, and most notably, adding an extension to the front jaws. This extension was used to lift the skirts of Final Destiny into its own blade, forcing Final Destiny to remove its own skirts. This resulted in Final Destiny being so unbalanced that it eventually ended up on its back. This fight alone was deemed the best fight in the entire tournament.
- Diesector's remote has an inversion switch meaning that Donald Hutson can drive Diesector properly while inverted.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: A good portion of its victories are knockouts.
- Swiss-Army Weapon: Initially during seasons 1 and 2, it had pickaxes as its arms. This evolved into hammers starting Season 3. Donald Hutson proved this ability during Season 5 where it was able to swap out weapons as needed. This was most notable during its match against Final Destiny. The only weapon that stays the same is its jaws (although they can be modified as needed).
- Victory Pose: One of the few bots that can actually do this. Specifically, it opens its jaws wide while hitting its hammers and spinning in circles at the same time. Said victory pose is probably the best in all of BattleBots.
Doo All
Team: Team DooAll
Driver: Scott LaValley
This bot consists of two pods that uses treads as a form of locomotion, with a central section that uses a pneumatic rod as a weapon. It made the finals of Season 1.- Logical Weakness: The design of this bot makes it vulnerable to any sort of wedge. This is highlighted by its loss to Minion during Season 1 where it got constantly tossed around the Battlebox by Minion's wedge.note
- The Worf Effect: As designs of bots improved, the flaws in DooAll became readily apparent. It was retired after losing in Season 3.
Iceberg
Team: Team Toad
Team Captain and Driver: Michael Mauldin
A simple six-wheeled bot armed with a pneumatic plow. It participated in seasons 3, 4, and 5. Builder and driver Michael "Fuzzy" Maudlin was the inventor of the Lycos search engine, and entered two robots into the revival seasons.- Agony of the Feet: Its loss to Maximus during Season 5 was caused by his wheels getting warped into his frame. This was likely due to all the damage suffered when it fought Phrizbee-Ultimate.
- Boring, but Practical: The plow doesn't amount to much, so this is primarily a bot designed to push his opponents around.
- Crazy-Prepared: During Season 5, Mauldin doubled the wheels on this bot, increasing it to 12 wheels, with two wheels per hub. This became useful during its fight against Phrizbee-Ultimate; while Phrizbee-Ultimate was able to remove some wheels, he only removed the outer wheels while the inner wheels remained intact.
- Determinator: During the first part of the match against Phrizbee-Ultimate, it was getting thrashed with Phrizbee-Ultimate removing wheels and the plow from Iceberg. However, Iceberg continued to press the attack, and when Phrizbee-Ultimate stopped spinning, Iceberg continued to hit Phrizbee-Ultimate until the screws flipped the non-spinning bot over.
- Lightning Bruiser: A very speedy bot that takes a lot of punishment.
- Stone Wall: This ability is what allowed Iceberg to win against Phrizbee-Ultimate.
The Judge
Team: Team Mechanicus
Driver: Jascha Little
A simple bot armed with a pneumatic hammer. It participated in seasons 3, 4, and 5.- Failsafe Failure: The hammer is powerful enough to act as a self-righting mechanism should it be flipped over. However during its fight against Toro in Season 4, the bot hit Toro's flipping arm with its hammer. Toro would promptly flip The Judge over in a manner to end up bending the arm so that it was immobilized, and The Judge ended up getting counted out.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: During Season 5, if you watch when the hammer is deployed, you can see the word GUILTY carved into the arm.
- Man on Fire: While fighting No Apologies during Season 5, a hit from No Apologies' spike damaged one of The Judge's motors which then exploded.
Mechadon
Team: Team Sinister
Driver: Mark Setrakian
More of a moving art piece than a combat robot, Mechadon was a walking robot built to look like a giant mechanical spider, with six huge claws for legs. Mechadon rarely won fights, but it was one of the most popular robots with crowds, and driver Mark Setrakian often warmed up the audience at television tapings by showing off tricks he could do with the robot. Setrakian does not compete in the revival seasons, but did build the "Axis" moving robotic artwork on which the Giant Nut is displayed before it is awarded to the champion.- Awesome, but Impractical: A beautiful mechanical work of art, but it was not particularly useful or damaging inside the Battlebox.
- Humongous Mecha: Weighing in at 480 pounds, it's still one of the biggest robots to have ever entered BattleBots.
Minion
Team: Team CoolRobots
Team Captain: Christian Carlberg
Driver: Brian Roe
A six-wheeled bot with a wedge at one end, and a saw at the other. It won the Season 1 tournament while being the finalist in Season 3, while competing in all 5 seasons of the Comedy Central era.- Didn't Think This Through: Two flaws in the bot contributed to its losses during Seasons 2 and 4.
- During Season 2, the saw was set to spin downwards during its match against Atomic Wedgie. But poor driving meant that it drove into the lexan wall, where the downward-spinning saw would send the bot upwards and crashing onto its back. The lack of a self-righting mechanism meant that Minion couldn't flip itself back over, thus causing Minion to lose its match.
- The robot was designed with the main receiver at the top of the robot underneath the lexan armor. It was thought that the receiver would be safe from any attacks from such a position. But in a Season 4 matchup against No Apologies, the spike of that bot was able to punch through the top lexan and directly hit the receiver, incapacitating it.
- Loophole Abuse: Team CoolRobots actually has a second super-heavyweight named Dreadnought. But in order to satisfy the rule of "one bot per division per team", the team split into two starting Season 3. In Minion's case, it "belonged" to "Team C2" while this team's "captain" was Brian Roe. In addition, the rules never prohibited members of different teams from working together, so even though Christian Carlberg handled Dreadnought, he also worked with Brian Roe to drive Minion.
- Product Placement: Minion had a sponsorship from Wizards of the Coast and sported two prominent Magic: The Gathering logos on its back for most of its run. Team CoolRobots' heavyweight bot Overkill also sported Magic logos on its back as well. The Magic sponsorship was one of the biggest in terms of name recognition for any robot in the original series.
New Cruelty
Team: Team Killerbotics
Team Captain and Driver: Richard Stuplich
An 8-wheel drive bot that relies solely on its sturdy construction and traction to win its fights, while armed with a scoop to help push other bots around. It surprised the Super-Heavyweight bracket in its rookie season by making it to the finals against Toro during season 4. Afterwards it made the semifinals in season 5.- Boring, but Practical: The front scoop doesn't amount to much other than to reduce traction ability in his opponent so it can be pushed around. As Richard Stuplich has stated: "The Bot IS the weapon".
- Crazy-Prepared: To handle bots with an overhead weapon, the top armor can be replaced with a thicker type. However in order to compensate for the weight gain, they used a smaller front scoop. These modifications allowed it to win against No Apologies.
- Lightning Bruiser: Moreso than Iceberg. New Cruelty is not only sturdier, but also much faster.
- Stone Wall: Hoo Boy, this likely the best example in all of Battlebots.
No Apologies
Team: Tork's Team
Driver: John Torkelson
A large wedged bot armed with a pneumatic spike and lifting forks. It participated in seasons 3, 4, and 5.- Attack Its Weak Point: Did this twice to two different bots:
- Against Minion in Season 4, the spike penetrated the top of the lexan where it hit the main receiver, incapacitating the bot.
- Against The Judge in Season 5, the spike hit the exposed seam where the hammer rests, striking a motor that soon exploded.
Son of Whyachi
Team: Team Whyachi
Team Captain and Driver: Terry Ewart
A large bot with a spinning apparatus consisting of three heavy hammers. When this bot entered the BattleBots competition in Season 3, it took advantage of a rule in the book that stated that non-wheeled bots could have a significant weight bonus. Team Whyachi came up with a cam-based shuffling locomotion system, which at the time, classified it as a walker and allowed it to compete as a heavyweight. It tore through the Heavyweight division, even beating then-defending champion Biohazard. But after the season, the rules were modified to lower the weight bonus and it was forced into the Super-Heavyweight division, where it suffered a quick loss during Season 4. It was completely reworked during Season 5, ditching its shuffling system for actual wheels. Versions of this bot would later appear in the ABC/Discovery seasons. Terry Ewert's sons also compete with other Team Whyachi robots in the revival seasons.- Actually Pretty Funny: Team Whyachi devolved into laughter when their bot careened out of control and knocked itself out in its only Season 4 match against Swirlee.Terry Ewart: (laughing) I guess that didn't work for shit.
- Didn't Think This Through: After being forced into the Super-Heavyweight Division for Season 4, it had to fight Swirlee in its first match. Because Swirlee was also a bot with a spinning blade, Team Whyachi attempted to raise the hammers on the bot so that it would not hit the blade of Swirlee and target a different part of the bot instead. They also tried to reinforce the base of the bot in order to counter the gyroscopic forces of the spinning hammers. They must have miscalculated somewhere as the bot came unbalanced and careened into the corner of the Battlebox, knocking itself out.
- Family Theme Naming: Believe it or not, there actually was a bot named Whyachi during season 3 that competed in this same Super-Heavyweight division but lost in its own fight in the preliminary rounds. But because of the rule changes after Son of Whyachi won the Heavyweight division, Whyachi was effectively disqualified from all of BattleBots competitions. Son of Whyachi was actually named to be the smaller sibling of the larger Whyachi bot, but would ultimately be the signature bot from the group after it was forced into the Super-Heavyweight division.note
- Loophole Abuse: Their novel way to take advantage of the weight bonuses granted to "walking" bots. Specifically, Son of Whyachi had camshafts that were attached to shuffling pads. As the camshaft spun, the shuffling pads would provide the locomotion. This allowed Son of Whyachi to have the heaviest hammers possible to do damage, and it tore through its opponents with ease. Only Mechavore and Biohazard gave it some trouble. Of course this led to....
- Obvious Rule Patch: For season 4, the weight bonuses were significantly reduced to the point that Son Of Whyachi was forced into the Super-Heavyweight division, where they have competed since.
- One-Hit Kill: Did this to Nightmare when fighting in the Heavyweight Division in Season 3.
- Spectacular Spinning: The spinning hammers.
- Trash the Set: While out of control during Season 4, it damaged one of the screw assemblies in the corner of the Battlebox.
Toro
Team: Inertia Labs
Driver: Reason Bradley
The original bot from Inertia Labs, Toro made a splash in Season 2 with its (then) novel flipping weapon. It would continue competitions during the Comedy Central run, ultimately winning the Super-Heavyweight Division in Season 4.- Born Unlucky: During Season 2, it dominated its match against Atomic Wedgie, only for a zip tie holding a battery to break and the battery falling out, incapacitating it. During Season 3, a single hit from Minion busted open a CO2 tank and it was unable to activate its flipping arm.
- Dirty Coward: Its fight against Phrizbee Ultimate in Season 5 can best be summed up as Toro being aggressive early and late and Phrizbee Ultimate moving towards Toro and Toro driving away, in between, until the last second when Toro manages to flip Phrizbee Ultimate, but it was "too little, too late" and lost a 25-20 judges decision.
- Took a Level in Badass: Compared to its appearances during Season 2 and 3, Season 4 was a perfect run for Toro where nothing went wrong, ultimately leading to a championship win. Unfortunately, it could not defend its title in its first match in Season 5, losing to Phrizbee-Ultimate.
Vladiator
Team: Team Vladmeisters
Driver: Gage Cauchois
Billed as "Vlad The Impaler's" bigger brother, Vladiator was a fast bot armed with a single lifting spike (although for Season 5, the spike was replaced by a plate). It won the championship in its debut during Season 3 and reached the finals of Season 5.- An Arm and a Leg: It lost its lifting spike twice in season 4. The first time, the arm got torn off by Trimangle. The second time aganist Toro, the spike first got caught on a seam on the floor. This weakened the spike to the point that when the two bots collided, the spike broke.
- Boring, but Practical: Continuing on with the theme from Vlad the Impaler, the bot was essentially a box with a lifting spike (which was replaced by a plate in Season 5).
- Deadpan Snarker: Gage delivered an epic one when told the Battlebox arena had to be shut down after Vladiator damaged it.It's my fault, I'm sorry I broke the wall. I promise I won't do it again.
- Hoist by His Own Petard:
- During its Season 4 match against Toro, the lifting spike got caught on the floor, popping the bot upwards. This weakened the spike to a point that when the bots collided, the spike ended up breaking, leaving Vladiator without a primary weapon.
- During its Season 5 finals match against Diesector, Vladiator's speed essentially allowed it to cause serious damage to the Battlebox, forcing a halt to the match after only a little more of a minute and a half of fighting. Diesector would ultimately win via Judge's decision. Had Vladiator not damaged the box, there is a chance that he could have turned the match around with the time remaining.
- Lightning Bruiser: Even faster than New Cruelty, although it wasn't really designed to push other bots around.
- Portmanteau: The bot's name is essentially a combination of Vlad with Gladiator.
- Ramming Always Works: After having its spike torn off during its Season 4 match against Trimangle, Vladiator resorted to just ramming headlong into it, over and over again. This was arguably more effective than its usual tactic, as it disabled Trimangle's weapon with a single blow and proceeded to batter it and push it over the Killsaws until it could barely move.
- Trash the Set: During the Season 5 finals match with Diesector, Vladiator hit the side of the Battlebox with its lifted plate with such force that a Lexan panel fell off. This forced a halt to the match which was then sent to a judge's decision, which Diesector would ultimately win.
