BattleBots

Over it's 25 year history,

excellence atBattleBots

has been measured in hardware,

punctuated by the ultimate prize,

the Giant Nut.

Tonight...

the quest for another one of the sports' crown jewels...

... End Game

wins the first ever Golden Bolt.

...enters it's second chapter.

Five nights of single elimination fights...

...culminating in a merciless,

winner take all tournament.

I'm gonna take that!

Welcome to robot combat

-at its most raw. -Let's go!

This isBattleBots: Champions,

the race for the Golden Bolt.

Robots, activate.

Welcome to BattleBots: Champions Sin City Slugfest.

How we doing, Las Vegas?

I am Chris Rose,

joining as always, it's UFC legend,

robot combat analyst extraordinaire,

the one and only Kenny Florian.

It's great to be here as we get into

the heart of this incredible tournament.

Tonight, eight fighters will enter the box

but only one will punch their ticket

to the tournament of Champions.

There they'll face other bots

who claw their way through the Slugfest

as well as several BattleBots champions

in a winner take all fight to the death.

If they can survive that,

they'll win of the sport's most coveted pieces of hardware,

-the Golden Bolt! -

BattleBots: Champions is where chaos reigns supreme.

And that was proven again last week

in qualifier number one,

where SHREDDIT BRO!, 18, at risk of relegation

after World Championship VII,

defied all odds,

mowed through the competition

and earned a spot

in the Golden Bolt championship field.

SHREDDIT BRO! joins

the three most recent Giant Nut winners,

End Game, Tantrum and SawBlaze,

all of whom received automatic bids.

But four spots are still up for grabs.

Well, the bots are definitely hungry for glory.

So let's see what's in store for tonight.

Reese Ewert

and the ambidextrous assassin, Fusion

will collide with one of the most iconic robots in the sport,

the king of control, Whiplash.

The nutty professor Martin Mason

has MaDCatTer ready to bare it's claws

against the horizontal horror show, Bloodsport.

They all love to brawl.

Bunny Sauriol and Malice

will face a pink and yellow bot

that will turn you black and blue,

HiJinx.

But we kick things off

with champion designer Aren Hill

and his ferocious flywheel flipper, Blip.

Taking on the bulletproof Brazilians,

the incinerator from south of the equator

Black Dragon.

Let's get it on!

Faruq, take it away.

Ladies and gentlemen,

are you ready?

It's robot fighting time!

In the red square,

from Mountain View, California,

forget a mountain view,

he'll throw you so high,

you'll be able to see the curvature of the earth.

It's Blip!

The flipper bot, Blip!

Captain Aren Hill,

of course, the original architect

of the Giant Nut winner Tantrum,

which has an automatic bid to the Golden Bolt tournament.

But when it comes to Aren's younger killer creation,

what are you hoping to see here Kenny?

Well, hopefully, a little more of the magic

from its rookie season where Blip made the top eight.

The flywheel tech is so cool,

it allows Blip to fire

an unlimited number of flips,

but it failed to live up to expectations

at World Championship VII.

To make a deep run tonight,

Aren's gotta let it rip.

In the blue square,

from Itajuba, Brazil,

don't be fooled by their cute stuffed duck.

They came here to quack you upside in.

It's Black Dragon!

If there's ten members on their team,

we're gonna see probably 12 smiles

as they enter through the tunnel.

Julio Cortez the man waving on the right

is their team Captain.

-I got you! - So what team spirit they've got, huh?

These guys are the party, Chris,

and this is the exact type of tournament

where they can shine.

Black Dragon's durability

is nearly unmatched.

-Last season, they almost tied - Whoa!

Bite Force's streak

of most career fights

without getting knocked out.

They've got the goods to go deep here.

Blip's first fight is the near indestructible Black Dragon.

We feel like we have an advantage

on the ground game side of things.

We're also very durable.

But it's basically gonna be driving,

take control and keep 'em in the air most of the match.

Blip's very much, I would say,

a control bot that we... we can launch people.

It's hard to actually get... get a KO from that.

So we might not win the damage category,

but we wanna, just, hands down,

have aggression and control taken care of.

The main strategy is to try to control

the middle of the bots.

We got these pointy... pointy little forks

right next to the egg beater.

And it's... has a lower ground clearance.

If they try to get their forks beneath us,

we're gonna toss 'em up

and try to...to win the ground game.

We are come there to fight against Blip.

Blip could be... could be cute,

but Mano duck is more.

-There's nothing can be cuter than, better than... -There's not gonna be cuter...

-Yeah. -And the luck is always with us.

Black Dragon! Black Dragon!

Robots, activate.

Okay, Kenny. This is Sin City

and being the wise guy that you are,

you put together some odds for tonight's fights.

So what are we looking at

with Black Dragon versus Blip?

Well, either team could win this Slugfest tonight,

but I've got the Brazilians

as a slight favorite in this one.

Both bots are so tough.

Collectively, they've only been KO'd three times,

so, to me, the question is

which weapon will do more damage?

A ceiling scraping flip

could change things at any time,

but I like Black Dragon's prong here.

-Blip! Blip! Blip! - We have three straight fights

and punch your ticket to the Golden Bolt tournament.

Who's gonna get win number one here?

Let the bot battle begin!

Little saunter out by both teams.

Uh-oh! Blip almost got under Black Dragon.

Wanna get around to the side.

- Oh! - Now going head on.

Nice spinny flip.

Double flip.

Let's see if Blip can follow it up.

There Black Dragon pinned in the corner.

Doesn't seem like they have

quite the right angle there, Kenny.

Yeah, this is one of those limitations of this robot.

Without momentum to push it's opponent

up onto its flipper,

it just can't get a solid flip.

And Blip releases.

Black Dragon had a little trouble

with the floor.

Gabriel Bertozzi looking to engage.

-Oh! - Oh!

There's that weapon,

that 45 pound, eight gear drum.

Black Dragon taking over here.

Uh-oh, but it looks like

the weapon on Black Dragon has stopped momentarily.

Oh, there comes a 100 pound hammerhead

in on the head of Blip.

It is, it's back on now Chris.

That egg beater spinning up to full speed.

Gosh, these two bots are so dense,

you forget they weigh 250 pounds.

- Uh-oh, Blip is on fire! - Oh, no!

I don't know if we've ever seen that

the few seasons that Blip's been around.

Yeah, that looks like a bad internal fire.

That's not good.