Butchers don't carve cheese!

A crew from Comedy Central traveled to England to get some shots of Warhead. ("Oh drat, our jobs require us to travel to England. It's a taxing assignment, but one we shall bravely accept.") Instead of playfully chasing after the horses we see, Warhead hangs out in the forest to prey on unsuspecting hikers. When it's not doing that, it makes some extra spending money by clearing out any dead brush near the ground. And chipmunks.

Circuit City is sponsoring BattleBots despite the fact that they carry not a single BattleBots toy. And they say they know how I feel.

Starting off with an anticipatable heavyweight fight -- Warhead versus The Matador. We know these two, so let's light this candle.

The Matador rushes Warhead, which is already spinning up and puts a mark in The Matador's side.

Warhead has its arms up in the air for this fight, since it doesn't want to give The Matador any more parts to flip than necessary. When Warhead turns, though, its raised arms make the robot pitch even more. The spinning dome scrapes the floor.

Warhead heads directly toward The Matador with its spinning dome. The Matador backs off and runs around the other way.

The Matador is avoiding Warhead. Warhead is turning and tilting. Warhead moves toward The Matador. The Matador turns, and Warhead hits it in the side. Warhead bounces around and loses that caster under its dome.

The Matador chases after Warhead, getting near Warhead's side. The Matador is almost underneath... it raises the lifting arm. Unfortunately, The Matador wasn't far enough underneath, so Warhead bounces away while The Matador lands on its head, next to a sledgehammer.

No problem, right? We're going to get to see The Matador do its awesome eight-foot self-righting maneuver again.

The Matador doesn't retract its arm.

Warhead attacks the underbelly of The Matador, pushing it under the sledgehammer. The sledgehammer gets a couple of hits in. Warhead lets its dome spin down.

The Matador twitches, but doesn't move the arm. Warhead drives around the Box. The Matador is counted out.

Cause of death: something broke in The Matador's arm. Then replays, then an interview with Team Razer. Tony Rock makes fun of Ian Lewis' pants. I'd make it a point not to rile the team with the deadly, hiker-killing robot.

Tim teases the other two fights in this episode, then takes us back to the BattleBox, where Bil Dwyer is with Evil Cheese Wedge. It's being pitted against lightweight SnowFlake, which now has spikes on its plow.

It's robot exhibition time. Both bots tentatively come out of their squares. Then they both weave around on the floor, not touching each other. After five seconds of that, we go to commercial.

The ol' battlebots.com plug. Go there to see a picture from an upcoming fight!

Four seconds left on the clock. SnowFlake spins in place. Evil Cheese Wedge kind of stutters back and forth. The saws try desperately to become unhinged and attack the nearby robots. The buzzer sounds.

In the replays, we see SnowFlake pushing Evil Cheese Wedge from the side, then both just kind of moving around. Mark Beiro announces the "controversial decision" for Evil Cheese Wedge. Team Toad acts disappointed.

To tie up some more loose ends, we learn about the winner of the It's Your Battle sweepstakes from last season. He won the chance to pilot Easty Beast, a middleweight from the Mutant Robots team. Easty Beast more or less has Tazbot's lower body (including tail) with a lifting weapon in the front. But it lost in its second fight, so you're not going to get to see it outside of this segment.

How about a legitimate robot fight, eh? Diesector versus Dreadnought. Dreadnought is unchanged. Diesector has left the hammers off and the rear plow on, though it has removed the Final Destiny-killing extensions from its jaws.

Bot fight time. Diesector leads with the plow, slamming into Dreadnought's spinning disks. The disks immediately break a part of the plow off. Diesector keeps at it, though, and stops the disks with what's left of the plow. It then shoves Dreadnought across the floor and into the base of a screw. Dreadnought goes vertical.

Dreadnought gets its wheels back on the ground. Diesector drives up Dreadnought's wedge, backs off, and turns around to use its wedge-jaws. It backs over the saws and takes a hit.

Diesector wedges under Dreadnought's disks, stopping them again, and pushes Dreadnought into a wall. Dreadnought spins up. Diesector pushes it into another wall.

Dreadnought tries to get away to spin its disks. Diesector is directly behind it, though. It wedges under the disks again and shoves Dreadnought under a sledgehammer. Dreadnought's tire gets hit. So does Diesector's body.

Diesector wedges under Dreadnought again, and shoves it into another wall. Dreadnought flips upside-down.

Diesector stays right behind Dreadnought and gets those jaws underneath again. Now the upper jaw starts to lift Dreadnought up against a screw. Diesector works its way around the back and gets that upper jaw under the disks, leaving only the front of Dreadnought's wedge on the ground. Given that Dreadnought has such huge tires, I'm really impressed with Diesector's ability to keep it under control so often.

Diesector pushes the dangling Dreadnought around, but Dreadnought slips off and lands on the floor, right side up. Both bots feel the saws.

Dreadnought spins the disks, but Diesector gets in there with the open jaws and stops them again. That upper jaw fits nicely in between the two disks. Diesector doesn't clamp, though ("Aww," says everybody watching the fight), instead pushing Dreadnought against the spikes. Diesector drives up Dreadnought's wedge, giving Dreadnought a brief chance to push it. Diesector gets off and resets the jaws to wedge mode.

Dreadnought wedges under Diesector once while the jaws are resetting, but Diesector just goes up and over. When the jaws are a wedge again, Diesector stops the spinning blades once more and pushes Dreadnought into a screw. Diesector raises the upper jaw and Dreadnought is turned over and raked across the screw.

Dreadnought lands on the ground (as opposed to landing on a flight of stairs, I guess). Diesector uses the open jaws to clamp onto Dreadnought's tire, preventing it from spinning. Dreadnought tries to escape, but Diesector is right there, trying to clamp onto Dreadnought's wedge. It's too slippery, though, so Diesector lowers its jaws.

Diesector pushes Dreadnought toward the saws, which appear to cut into one of Dreadnought's tires. Dreadnought wedges under Diesector, but Diesector escapes. The fight ends with the robots side-to-side.

Christian Carlberg chants a request for one more minute. But the judges turn in a score of 31-14 (not 31-19, as Tim said -- unless one of judges really has a problem with addition) and send Dreadnought packing.

The next fight is teased. Then it's back down to the Box, as Evil Cheese Wedge will now face Psyche, a middleweight box with a wedge in the front. Bil Dwyer is piloting Evil Cheese Wedge and Gary Coleman is piloting Psyche.

Okay, that's not really true. What they don't tell you is that both robots are being "ghost driven" by actual robot builders. Driven poorly on purpose. I'm not sure why that's funnier or more entertaining than just letting Bil and Gary have at it, but there you go.

The box is locked, the lights are on, it's not really robot fightin' time. Evil Cheese Wedge makes a sharp (Get it? Sharp?!?) right turn. Psyche meanders on over toward Evil Cheese Wedge. Evil Cheese Wedge is turning in all sorts of random directions. They go to commercial before the robots meet.

The safety warning that nobody really pays attention to, and back to the fight. Psyche has stopped moving and Evil Cheese Wedge is wedged under the rear of the robot. Evil Cheese Wedge is spinning its tire, but is unable to move. Time expires. Bil is holding his transmitter upside-down.

In the replays, we see Psyche drive over to the side and promptly die. Evil Cheese Wedge nudges it in the rear corner. At some point during the "fight," Evil Cheese Wedge drives around, teasing the sledgehammer. It then scrapes Psyche along the side. Evil Cheese Wedge loses power to one of its wheels, spins in place, and gets stuck under Psyche.

Evil Cheese Wedge is again declared the winner. I guess, technically, it did win that time.

"We've got a real fight for you," says Tim -- Mauler 51-50 versus MechaVore. Both look the same as they did last season, so let's fight.

When you've got two powerful spinners in the Box, you don't get any of that rushing across the floor at the start of the fight. Both bots take some time to make sure their weapons are nice and dangerous before heading on out.

MechaVore points its disk at Mauler. Mauler drives back and forth. MechaVore continues to point at Mauler. MechaVore drives forward, and Mauler charges the side of MechaVore. Mauler hits the side of MechaVore's body. The bots repel one another.

MechaVore's disk continues to spin. MechaVore drives around and lines itself up for a charge. Meanwhile, Mauler's shell is slowing down.

MechaVore drives forward and puts sparks on Mauler's shell, making it go slower. MechaVore hits Mauler again, this time spinning Mauler's shell with the force of the disk.

Mauler's shell slows down to a stop. MechaVore's disk continues to spin. MechaVore hits Mauler again, turning the shell and knocking it crooked.

Mauler drives over the saw holes. MechaVore turns and its disk meets the saws that pop up (bending the saw blade and putting a crack in the Lexan saw hole cover in the process). MechaVore hits Mauler with its disk again.

Mauler limps around. MechaVore ruins its shell some more. MechaVore's disk grinds to a halt. Smoke begins to come out. That's a hard habit to break, MechaVore.

Both robots drive around. MechaVore tries to push Mauler with its front. It tries again. Mauler drives around. These two weren't designed to get into a pushing match.

MechaVore finds it difficult to push the round Mauler with its round disk. Mauler tempts the saws. Then it drives onto one of its flails and gets high-centered.

MechaVore lines itself up and rams Mauler, freeing it from its own flail.

More driving. It's hard to tell which robot, if either, is pushing the other.

MechaVore backs up. And spins its disk up again! Whew -- something's going to happen now.

MechaVore hits Mauler, then hits it again. Mauler is knocked away, then heads back to MechaVore. MechaVore puts another gash in Mauler's shell.

The buzzer sounds as MechaVore is turning in place. Its disk hits Mauler's shell one last time, spinning it (the shell) around. "This is what I expected you to be doing," says MechaVore.

MechaVore moves on with a 33-12 decision. Post-fight stuff comes later, as it's time for yet another Evil Cheese Wedge fight.

And now the gag reaches its climax as Evil Cheese Wedge faces The Butcher. The Butcher is another super heavyweight from Inertia Labs. It uses pneumatics to quickly spin up a blade in the front of the bot. Evil Cheese Wedge, as you may remember, appears to be a lightweight. I think we all can see what's going to happen. And I think we all want to see what's going to happen.

Gimmick endin' time. Evil Cheese Wedge heads out to the center of the Box. So does The Butcher, spinning its blade. The Butcher hits Evil Cheese Wedge in the side. The wheel on the other side of Evil Cheese Wedge falls off.

Edit. The Butcher scrapes the side of Evil Cheese Wedge, then pushes it against the wall. Wires are sticking out of Evil Cheese Wedge, which catch on The Butcher's blade, causing The Butcher to drag Evil Cheese Wedge across the floor.

Edit. Now Evil Cheese Wedge is missing both of its wheels and is resting on the spike strip. The Butcher spins its blade and rams into Evil Cheese Wedge, knocking half of its cheese-colored armor off.

Edit. Parts of Evil Cheese Wedge are all over the place. Evil Cheese Wedge is counted out.

Commercials. They're fake, too. Sorry to disappoint you.

The Hit of the Week is one of the times Diesector slammed Dreadnought into the wall. Then Tim suggests the Hit of the Week be Evil Cheese Wedge being torn apart by The Butcher. What, are they giving out trophies for this? Show another fight or something.

Arj quite nearly conducts an interview with the Mauler team. Then the recaps of the three real fights in tonight's episode. Bil ends the show by calling BattleBots a mother.

Here's a special bonus for you -- a couple of BattleBots-themed puzzles such as the ones you might find in your daily newspaper. Actually, I completely ripped off the formats from the puzzles in my daily newspaper. But they're both written by me and related to fighting robots. In fact, in addition to being BattleBots-themed, the crossword puzzle is specifically super heavyweight-themed! Whoo, huh?

Please note that this is not going to become a regular feature of any kind. For one thing, I'm a terrible artist, as you can see. And I apologize in advance for a couple of crappy clues in the crossword puzzle. But these should keep you occupied for a while. I'll give you the answers in the episode thirteen summary. Have fun!

(Hint: The answer to the fourth scrambled word is not "POINTS." Nor is it "PINTOS.")

Click here for the crossword puzzle, which you can then print out and use as a small placemat

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