Fight Breakdown
Jonathan Schultz
HUGE vs. Sawblaze - WCVII Fight #9 - Finals!

There isn’t much that can prepare you mentally for actually having an opportunity to fight for the Giant Nut. Many members of Team HUGE have had opportunities to win events in the past, whether that be local events or NHRL tournaments. And we’ve even actually won some of them! But the specific stresses, the atmosphere, the effort level, and the costs of Battlebots just make it something exceptional compared to anything else. This is the moment you dream of.

HUGE vs. Sawblaze - WCVII Fight #9 - Finals!
Fight Breakdown
Jonathan Schultz
HUGE vs. Copperhead - WCVII Fight #8 - ...

With a win in the Round of 8 over Witch Doctor, we realized that World Championship 7 was crossing from “a great year” into something even more magical. To be fighting for a spot in the finals, after the last 2 seasons HUGE had, served to show how far we had come and how much we had learned.

Copperhead would be our third opponent in a row that was a very short, compact, and highly-competitive vertical spinner. For lack of a better term, we had talked a lot of smack talk for a long time about the small-vertical-spinner type of opponent. And in our last two fights, HUGE lost the use of its weapon due to getting punched very hard upwards (MadCatter) and hitting a very solid object (Witch Doctor).

As for Copperhead, looking at the bot, they appear to have two main design goals:

  • Punch things upwards very hard

  • Be a very solid object for people to hit

Crap.

HUGE vs. Copperhead - WCVII Fight #8 - Semi-Finals!

Witch Doctor

HUGE vs. Witch Doctor - WCVII Fight #7 - Top 8!

HUGE vs. Witch Doctor - WCVII Fight #7 - Top 8!

Witch Doctor is a legendary opponent, having competed in every prior season of Battlebots. They’ve been to the Round of 8 four times, overall Runner-Up twice, 2021 Golden Bolt Runner-Up, won two Bounty tournaments, won Re:Mars 2019, and in general cemented their place as one of the faces of the modern era of Battlebots. All of this adds up to the fact that the frame and construction of Witch Doctor is really well-dialed, having been through so many iterations and top-tier fights since 2015. Hitting Witch Doctor was one of the most solid objects that HUGE had ever struck!