Robot Wars Wiki
Advertisement
Robot Wars Wiki

The US Championship was one of the main competitions held in both seasons of Robot Wars: Extreme Warriors and Nickelodeon Robot Wars. Like the equivalent UK, Dutch and German championships, it was held in order to determine the national champion of the United States of America, and featured robots entered by teams who also participated in the North American robot combat shows BattleBots and Robotica.

Due to contractual and licensing issues concerning both of the aforementioned shows, some notable BattleBots competitors, such as BioHazard, Vlad the Impaler and frenZy, could not compete in later US Championships. This was despite all three appearing in media relating to the UK Robot Wars series, with frenZy also participating in the unaired American Robot Wars 2000 pilot. Other teams, such as Team Raptor, Team Minus Zero, Team LOGICOM, Team Run Amok and Team Juggerbot, would enter Extreme Warriors with either new machines, or renamed/redesigned versions of their existing BattleBots/Robotica competitors.

Precursors[]

1994-1997 US Competitions[]

While treated as a separate concern to the televised series produced by Mentorn, the original 1994-1997 US competitions run by Marc Thorpe were fundamentally domestic championships hosted in and primarily featuring competitors from the United States.

A spiritual predecessor to the heavyweight-only US Championships lies within the Heavyweight Face-Off tournaments held each year, which all exclusively comprised of one-on-one battles. While a straightforward knockout format was used from 1994 to 1996, the 1997 event introduced a double elimination format. Competitors defeated in the first round would fight on in a secondary Loser's Bracket, for a chance to stay on and eventually be reinstated in the Semi-Final stage. Face-Off tournaments with the same formats would also be run simultaneously in lower weight classes, alongside Melee tournaments for all available categories.

American Robot Wars 2000[]

Main article: American Robot Wars 2000

The unaired MTV pilot American Robot Wars 2000 marked the first instance in which a domestic US tournament was specially designated and recorded for television. However, the specific term 'US Championship' is not known to have been used in this instance; an official press release for the pilot merely listed the top accolade as US Robot Wars Heavyweight Champion.[1]

Of an originally-planned eight competitor robots - including robots competing simultaneously in BattleBots - only four were selected to appear in the pilot. The actual tournament itself lasted two rounds, each consisting of head-to-head battles. The final round was won by Mauler over frenZy.[2]

Extreme Warriors: Season 1[]

Main article: Extreme Warriors: Season 1/US Championship

In Season 1 of Extreme Warriors, the US Championship was featured as one of several smaller competitions held throughout the season. The tournament featured only 24 competitor robots (although Conquering Clown and Skullmania both withdrew prior to competing).

Unlike most domestic Robot Wars championships, the Season 1 US Championship was intended to be held during a single episode. To accomplish this, the 'Heats' actually consisted of four six-way melees, where only one robot from each would progress to the Semi-Finals. The four Semi-Finalists would be paired off into two one-on-one battles, where the winners would progress to the final to determine the first US champion.

Extreme Warriors: Season 2[]

Main article: Extreme Warriors: Season 2

The second season featured a greater emphasis on the main US Championship, featuring 48 robots split across eight qualifying heats. The format for the heats followed those of Series 4 of the UK series; the first round featured two three-way melees where one robot each would be eliminated. Two robots from each first round battle would progress to the second round, consisting of a pair of one-on-one battles to determine the two Heat Finalists. The winner of the Heat Final would progress to the Grand Final.

The Grand Final featured a simple knockout format similar to that adopted by the Grand Final of Dutch Series 2, beginning with two rounds of one-on-one battles between the eight heat winners. The two second-round winners would then fight each other in the final to determine the season champion.

Nickelodeon Robot Wars[]

Main article: Nickelodeon Robot Wars/US Championship

A significantly smaller version of the US Championship formed one episode of Nickelodeon Robot Wars, which only featured four competitors due to time restrictions. The format was based on the Grand Finals of the UK Championship, featuring two one-on-one eliminators, a playoff between the losers of each eliminator and a Grand Final to determine the champion.

Trivia[]

  • The US Championship was the only heavyweight championship held in televised Robot Wars series where every competitor actually originated from the contested country, in this case the United States. By contrast, the UK, Dutch and German series nearly always featured at least one international competitor alongside their respective national entries, with the only exception being Series 10 of the UK series.

References[]

Navigation[]

Advertisement