King of Bots (Season 2)/Episode 10

Season 2 title card

The **tenth episode of *King of Bots II*** aired on September 15th 2019. It was the first episode to completely eliminate a celebrity team from the competition, with both Tao Shen and Tu Ziya being knocked out as a result of the episode's battles.

## Competing robots

* Black Rabbit
* Cat King
* Dragon King
* Earth Shovel
* Megabyte
* Po Feng
* Snake
* Spectre
* Warrior
* Yesaji

*NOTE: Doraemon and Iron Scrap were also eliminated in this episode without fighting a battle.*

## Setup

This episode continued the team battles started in Episode 9's Elimination Round. The first half of the episode saw Ye Hong Li's team face off with Tao Shen's three remaining robots, with Tao Shen's loss leading to his elimination from the competition, along with his three robots.

With only five managers left, the celebrities would start to fight each other in rotations, across individual head-to-heads. Each fight would lead to one robot being cut from the competition. This also led to Tu Ziya's entire team being eliminated at the end of the episode, with two of her robots not even fighting, due to a loss from Yesaji.

## Ye Hong Li vs Tao Shen

*NOTE: Robots on the left represent Yi Hong Le. Robots on the right represent Tao Shen.*

### Cat King vs Earth Shovel

Earth Shovel made the first move and crashed into Cat King, but rode straight up its opponent's forks, making the team wary of their inferior ground clearance. Earth Shovel then made a measured shove, bumping into the side of Cat King while avoiding the accelerating spinner. The floor flipper disrupted the motions of Cat King, causing it only to scrape the back end of Earth Shovel upon contact, and Earth Shovel cleanly resisted Cat King's next charge. However after this time, Cat King had fully spun its blade up to speed, and it connected with the flipper of Earth Shovel, launching it across the arena and slicing through its wedge. Cat King was not far behind in pursuit, and delivered another big hit to Earth Shovel, ripping up its side.

Yet, just when Cat King thought it had a clear advantage, it rode up the wedge of Cat King and was flipped over. Cat King rolled back, but used its lifting arms to self-right. However, Earth Shovel was quicker with its response, and flipped Cat King directly onto its side during the self-righting attempt. Cat King still tumbled back down, and delivered two consecutive blows to Earth Shovel's flipper, prompting Earth Shovel to ram it hard in retaliation, knocking Cat King off the floor briefly.

Unfortunately for Earth Shovel, the damage to its wedge was preventing it from gaining a purchase, and easily allowed Cat King to bite into it with another big hit, launching Earth Shovel onto its side by the arena wall. Cat King knocked Earth Shovel down from this position, but the two became stuck together via Cat King's lifter. Cat King carried Earth Shovel around the arena for a period of time, with even Earth Shovel's flips and the arena floor flipper being unable to separate the two machines, until a third attempt from Earth Shovel to flip itself free resulted in it landing on Cat King's blade, taking more damage as the two finally separated.

Earth Shovel was left completely inverted after the separation, and seemed to be motionless, with the referee starting to count it out. Despite this, Earth Shovel successfully self-righted with only a few seconds left on its fatal count. Cat King still delivered more damage to the sides and front of Earth Shovel, shaking its side panel loose, and launching the whole robot into the air with one attack. Cat King continued to cleave away at Earth Shovel, but Earth Shovel still came back for more and rammed directly into Cat King's blade, sustaining more damage. Danger momentarily struck for Cat King as it drove into the Grinder, but otherwise continued to slice into Earth Shovel, trying to rip away its loose side panel. Even though it had sustained numerous attacks, Earth Shovel carried on as though it were unharmed, and in the final two seconds of the battle, it flipped Cat King onto its back.

Cat King did not have time to self-right before the end of the battle, but later self-righted to prove it was not immobile. As a result, the late hopes of Earth Shovel were quashed, and Cat King won the Judges' decision.

"*Our battle against the pancake flipper was a certain victory for us. That robot is good for making breakfast, not for fighting!*"
— Martin Mason

**Winner: Cat King**

### Warrior vs Dragon King

"*I was pretty excited because their robot would have a very difficult time knocking our robot out with their main weapon. I think we have a really good chance of winning!*"
— Jerome Miles

Both robots drifted around the arena in the opening stages, trying to find an opening, until eventually it was Warrior that drove into one of Dragon King's tread pods with a slam. Dragon King drove away, but only a few moments into the battle, one of its tread pods seized, leaving it with only half of its drive capabilities in the early stages of the bout. Warrior then backed Dragon King into the wall, but was similarly hindered in that its weapon could not fire, and Dragon King brought down one of its saws to grind away at Warrior's front wedge, with the head of Dragon King also initiating a grip on Warrior which it would not release for a long while. Dragon King drove Warrior back, cutting into its front wedgelets gradually, while sustaining no attacks in response, giving Dragon King no reason to release its prey, especially as Jerome Miles had realised that Dragon King's broken drive pod had started working again.

"*Alright, other tread's working again!*"
— Jerome Miles

Warrior was finally able to mount a response, and drove Dragon King into the Grinder, causing it to tilt its drive pods in an effort to regain composure, and also briefly disabled half of Dragon King's drive again. Warrior continued to attack, ramming Dragon King into the corner of the arena, overturning it completely. Dragon King's saws also connected with the arena wall during this attack, throwing sparks. Warrior persisted whilst Dragon King was inverted, and pinned it back into the same corner. Dragon King could not escape due to its broken drive pod, but similarly Warrior could not capitalize without its axe, and instead just pressed Dragon King back into the wall lightly, while Dragon King contorted its pods to try and slip away. After turning itself over, Dragon King managed to slot its jaw under Warrior's wedge, and regained the use of its drive pod so that it could grab Warrior and drive it across the arena.

Initially, Dragon King could gain little purchase on Warrior, and was driven back into the arena Grinder by the British machine, but did throw some sparks off Warrior. It seemed that Warrior boasted more pushing power, and it pushed Dragon King across the arena from within its own grip, visibly causing Dragon King's saws to wobble from the force of the slam. Although Dragon King rode its saws along the surface of Warrior, it was Warrior that simply pushed Dragon King back into the Grinder. Dragon King had forcibly released here, but did catch up to directly catch the side of Warrior with its cutting blades, and swung it over the arena saws. Warrior lined up a charge on Dragon King, but completely missed, and slammed into the Grinder. Warrior had collided with such force that it was overturned, and without the use of its axe, it could not self-right. Because of this Dragon King won by knockout.

"*The battle with Dragon King didn't go according to plan. The main reason that I lost was the main transmitter that's used to control the robot... broke, so the axe just didn't work when we got into the battle. Very disappointed, I really wanted to do much better than I did.*"
— Jason Marston

**Winner: Dragon King**

### Spectre vs Po Feng

"*Our team had modified something for Spectre before the battle. We increased the top armor from 10mm to 20mm, and also used 10mm 3D printing rubber to increase the thickness. We also added metal sheets to the front fork to enhance the ground contact (unfortunately, they fell off during the first crash). We tried to use Emerald's fork (Emerald's lucky bonus) to avoid the Spectre head-to-head conflict, but if the fork was used, there would be no extra weight to use the minibot. Our team had different opinions on using the fork. In the end, we did not think it was a good decision to install the fork. We chose the minibot instead of the fork and tried to use the minibot to hinder the distance of Spectre from the ground.*"
— Po Feng's plans before the fight

Po Feng entered the battle with two minibots, but drove straight onto the wedge of Spectre, allowing the crusher to immediately force its way into the spinner mounting of Po Feng, silencing the weapon while Spectre slammed Po Feng into the wall, breaking the added front wedges of Po Feng, although Po Feng fought back, slamming Spectre into the wall from within its opponent's bite. The tires of Po Feng started to release smoke from rubbing against the arena floor, and Spectre lightened its grip so that its next slam into the arena wall would cause both robots to fly off in different directions.

Po Feng was inverted, but Spectre slammed it into the wall and turned it back over, but used this chance to bite down on Po Feng from behind and drive it into a Grinder with three separate slams, and then another corner of the arena. Here, Spectre attempted to tighten its grip, but missed the armor of Po Feng, instead biting only into empty space where the blade would spin. Spectre attempted to reposition its claw and cause critical damage, while pressing Po Feng's spinner against the arena wall, but did not make any further purchase, so it settled for overturning one of Po Feng's minibots, and slamming the main robot into the wall.

Po Feng circled around the arena, but Spectre showed more composure, and caught it from behind again, pressing it back into the arena walls and Grinders, again biting only into empty space. Spectre momentarily lifted Po Feng into the air while retracting its claw, but Po Feng fell back down before it was bashed into yet another Grinder, also landing on one of its minibots, pulling its wheel off. One of Po Feng's two weapon belts also came loose as a result of this bite. The two robots separated, but Spectre soon got under the front of Po Feng again, and pierced the additional armor added to the top of Po Feng, although it did not bite through the robot's main armor.

Spectre still held tight and slammed Po Feng back into the Grinder mount wheel-first, also causing another gust of smoke to emerge from the overworked wheels. Spectre raised Po Feng off the floor with its crusher, dropping it onto the Grinder to turn Po Feng over. Spectre then repeatedly jammed Po Feng into the Grinder, causing it to pop up and even somersault over, although Po Feng did manage to escape and finally landed a hit with its weapon, striking the side of Spectre's wedge and throwing sparks from it. Po Feng then attempted to retreat for the remainder of the match, only briefly being caught on Spectre's lip, and landing a second light blow on its opponent when Spectre chased it down in the closing seconds. Time expired on the three-minute battle, and the Judges voted firmly in favour of Spectre.

"*We were amazed at the power and operation of Spectre. We also tried to attack the side of Spectre, but it didn't work. In several frontal conflicts, the position of the front armor exactly resist the location of the Spectre puncture and made it not bite the weapon motor. The prepared space for a bite was relatively large, which was located in the middle of the two weapon motors. We did not expect Spectre to choose to attack from behind us, but the bite positions were exactly between the two main beams, and the bite broke a belt without any other damage, luckily.*"
— Team Pro-fun on the battle

**Winner: Spectre**

### Result

With Tao Shen losing the series of battles to Yi Hong Le two-to-one, he and his entire team - Earth Shovel, Dragon King and Po Feng - were all eliminated from the competition, as no manager could continue with less than three robots. Tao Shen and his roboteers bid farewell, and left the competition.

**Eliminated: Earth Shovel, Dragon King and Po Feng**

## Rotations

### Black Rabbit (Zhu Zheng Ting) vs Yesaji (Tu Ziya)

In the first collision, Black Rabbit appeared to demonstrate its lower ground clearance, but was still thrown back by the vertical spinner of Yesaji. The two separated, and then Yesaji went back in for the attack, but again its own wedge was not low enough, and it rode straight up the front of Black Rabbit, which pushed Yesaji into the wall. In response, Yesaji's disc scraped at the drum of Black Rabbit, which could not start to spin due to Yesaji being in too close a proximity, and Black Rabbit let out a small gust of smoke while being pushed back across the arena by Yesaji, although Black Rabbit soon responded by bashing Yesaji into a Grinder mount.

The two separated again and circled around each other, with Black Rabbit finally able to spin up its drum. After reaching high speeds, Black Rabbit use its lower wedge to drive under Yesaji and slam it into the wall, while making first contact with its drum. A series of consecutive hits from Black Rabbit almost knocked Yesaji over, but it eventually escaped without serious harm. The two robots then collided head-on, bending one of Yesaji's wedges upwards, allowing Black Rabbit to inflict a follow-up blow that threw Yesaji onto its back. Black Rabbit capitalized on this heavily, and delivered a direct blow to Yesaji's weapon which completely shattered the golden spinner, and threw the parts of the broken weapon across the arena. This also caused the now weaponless Yesaji to front-flip through the air and land inverted again, with Black Rabbit now far in the lead.

The hindered Yesaji resorted to evasive measures and fled from Black Rabbit, but was eventually caught and thrown into the wall by Black Rabbit's drum, putting Yesaji back on its wheels. Yesaji was then able to complete a good drive into the arena wall, causing more smoke to emit from Black Rabbit, but with no visible effect on its opponent. After falling back down from an arena spike it was briefly pinned on, Black Rabbit ground down on Yesaji's wedges, and after enough blows, it was able to rip away the loose wedge of Yesaji entirely. This made Black Rabbit's next approach easier, and it slammed Yesaji into the wall hard, blasting it into the air with the combination of the drum spinner and the wall slam. Black Rabbit continued its assault, driving under Yesaji and piggy-backing it over to the Grinder, before delivering another blow to Yesaji's remaining wedge which threw the Indian machine over once again. Due to Yesaji's top panel being bent up earlier in the fight, Yesaji could hardly move while inverted, with even Zhu Zheng Ting encouraging Black Rabbit to stop fighting. Black Rabbit then celebrated its win by knockout whilst the referee counted Yesaji out of the battle.

**Winner: Black Rabbit**

### Result

After only one fight during the five-way rotations, Tu Ziya and her three robots were eliminated from the competition, again because she was not allowed to continue with only two robots. This led to Doraemon and Iron Scrap both being knocked out without even taking part in a battle, alongside Yesaji's elimination.

**Eliminated: Doraemon, Iron Scrap, Yesaji**

### Snake (Zhu Zheng Ting) vs Megabyte (Ye Hong Li)

Snake entered this battle with its hardened anti-spinner plough, while Megabyte entered the battle with a set of forks, designed to breach Snake's thicker wedge which did not rest cleanly on the arena floor. A small wedge-shaped minibot also accompanied Megabyte.

At the start of the battle, Snake made the first move, cruising across the arena while Megabyte remained in place to spin up its shell, and release its minibot. Snake collided with the spinning Megabyte and knocked it straight into the arena wall to completely disrupt its spinning momentum. Megabyte attempted to spin back up, but Snake was already underneath it, and Megabyte's forks pushed it off the surface of Snake and unbalanced it as the shell spinner recoiled away. Snake continued its assault by pressing Megabyte against the arena wall, hoisting it up briefly using its front-hinged lifter, but soon let go.

Megabyte's spinning motion had come to a complete stop from these early attacks, and could not power up its shell spinner for the rest of the battle. It was therefore forced to fight using only its minibot and its partially bent forks, but surprisingly these were still able to wedge under the front of Snake, allowing Megabyte to guide it into the wall. Snake bumped into Megabyte and tried to pin it against the wall, although it again rode up Megabyte's forks. The two robots separated, and Snake charged past Megabyte's minibot to ram into its main target, again riding up the shell spinner slightly, but Snake was nevertheless on top. This lead came to a sudden halt, however, when Snake missed its next charge at Megabyte and pinned itself directly under an arena spike. With Snake's back wheels spinning in the air helplessly, Megabyte backed off and waited for Snake to be counted out, ending the fight abruptly.

"*If he didn't get stuck, there's no way we'd have won that fight, so we had luck on our side!*"
— John Mladenik

**Winner: Megabyte**

### Result

Forced to eliminate another robot only two fights after he cut Tánshè from his team, Zhu Zheng Ting was once again inclined to eliminate Switch, despite the British machine still being undefeated after its only two fights of the competition. Ellis Ware of The Hounds intercepted and defended Kevin Cleasby, with even the Greedy Snake team being shocked that Zhu Zheng Ting still wanted to cut Switch. It was Ellis Ware's belief that the defeated Snake should be the one to leave the competition. Zhu Zheng Ting's final decision was not announced until the following episode, where he ultimately chose to eliminate Snake from his team.

**Eliminated: Snake**

## Teams

*\*Snake's elimination was not confirmed until the following episode.*

## Trivia

* Despite her leaving the filming of the series in Episode 8, Emma Dumont appeared late into the episode to wish Ye Hong Li a happy birthday.

## References

1. ↑ https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story\_fbid=678337719351599&id=462230377629002
2. ↑ https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story\_fbid=678337719351599&id=462230377629002