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The original was posted on /r/battlebots by /u/RobbieJ4444 on 2025-06-30 10:00:56+00:00.
If I was to name the five most important robots to ever exist in robot combat, it would be La Machine, Biohazard, Razer, Chaos 2, and the most important of them all...Tombstone. It's easily the most iconic and most influential machine of the modern era, with most bots being either inspired by it, or designed to handle it. It is a legendary bot that's been around for over a decade now. Last Rites was incredibly successful in Robogames, but most came to know Tombstone during its return to Battlebots in WCI.
Its important to put Ray Billings' Robogames career into perspective, because most of the competitors of WCI didn't have that experience in the Robogames heavyweight scene, and because of that, very few competitors even had the remotest chance of defeating Tombstone that year. Bite Force, Stinger and Witch Doctor I reckon were the only robots with the potential to do so. Out of the three, Witch Doctor failed due to their lack of a self righting mechanism, Stinger never fought Tombstone, and Bite Force only managed it due to ongoing damage Tombstone caused itself in the Bronco fight.
There were many reasons for this to be the case. The primary one being the active weapon rule, which mandates that every robot needed a proper weapon in order to compete. Most defensive bots in Robogames were either pure wedges or lifters. Since Battlebots wanted their best machines to be more flashy, only a small amount of lifters were included, and it would take many years after WCI for other weapon types to reach the same amount of durability.
Another thing to keep in mind was that Tombstone was a far more tried and tested design than a bunch of the other WCI competitors. Compared to something like Radioactive that was a rush job built in a matter of weeks, or even Bronco which to my knowledge was Inertia Lab's first heavyweight in over a decade. I'd go as far to say that Tombstone only finishing 2nd in WCI is one of the biggest upsets in the Battlebots reboot.
A similar claim could be made in WCII. Despite the entry list being higher, how many machines had the capability of beating Tombstone? Beta and Minotaur are the only new ones I reckon had a chance. The moment Minotaur lost to Bombshell, Tombstone's championship was all but sealed. Apart from Beta, none of Tombstone's WCII opponents put up any resistance to it. It only lost its weapon once against Yeti, and Yeti was heavily damaged in the process, so they weren't able to take advantage.
For WCIII, the new producers made sure that Tombstone wasn't getting any more free rides against weak opposition. For their fight night, Tombstone received Minotaur, Gigabyte, Whiplash and Duck!...and they beat all four of them by knockout. Robots in this era were certainly more durable than previous years, but they still couldn't stand up to Tombstone. Tombstone would have a rematch with Bombshell once again, but the strain of fighting so many times destroyed their weapon chain, disabling their weapon. Bombshell's weapon also stopped working, but Tombstone committed a "Doh!" moment by driving over their chain, high centreing the machine, and getting KO'd as a result.
The leap in machine quality increased tenfold in WCIV. Machines were more durable and more deadly than ever... and yet most of them still couldn't hold up to Tombstone. Lockjaw got KO'd, Sawblaze got KO'd, Gruff survived the fight and gave a terrific effort against them, but they still lost the decision. Rotator actually became the third machine to beat Tombstone, but even using the same strategy used to wreck Icewave, Rotator suffered major damage in the process. In the tournament itself, Tombstone made quick work of Chinese champions Quantum, and beat Whiplash in a rematch which Tombstone won with significantly more ease than in WCIII. In the Bite Force rematch though, Bite Force wrecked them in about ten seconds, in what was easily Tombstone's most convincing loss to date.
A thing to remember about WCV is that the imperialist champion that was Bite Force didn't compete in it, so we were going to get a brand new champion providing that Tombstone didn't win it. The heavy favourites at the time were Huge, Whiplash, Witch Doctor and Tombstone itself. At the very least, Tombstone were the big favourites for the number one seed. When its first matchup was against the destructive but unreliable End Game, everyone expected it to be a walk in the park for Tombstone. Instead, End Game killed Tombstone's wheel, and threw them out of the arena in less than twenty seconds. It was a shock upset that meant that claims to the number one seed were now open.
Tombstone would then beat rookie machine Slapbox fairly easily, but in fairness to Slapbox, it put up more of a fight than some of Tombstone's more experienced victims. Skorpios however was a machine Tombstone was expected to win pretty easily, considering that they previously KO'd Sawblaze. Instead their wheel locked up early on in the fight, and were left driving in circles until the wheel came off entirely. There was some controversy in the fact that Tombstone was counted out, despite their ability to still drive on one wheel, but in my opinion, they should've been counted out way earlier in the fight when the wheel was pinned, so I don't begrudge the ref too much here.
It was still enough to get Tombstone into the tournament though, though they only received the 20th seed. This put them up against Mad Catter, and proceeded to beat them fairly convincingly. They met their end though in the round of sixteen after losing their weapon early on to Black Dragon. Tombstone would have one more fight against bounty winner Gruff, and they defeated them in far more convincing fashion than they did in their WCIV match.
Tombstone received an extensive rebuild for WCVI. This made them hit harder than they ever did before...at the cost of reliability (a common symptom of extensive rebuilds). This led to it suffering the indignity of it losing to Captain Shrederator in its first match. Admittedly the Captain was of a shape that on paper is effective against Tombstone, but considering that Captain Shrederator lost to Ghost Raptor later on that year, it wasn't exactly one of Tombstone's finest matches.
On paper, Tombstone should've slaughtered Mammoth, but in true Mammoth fashion, they actually achieved a double KO, and honestly Tombstone was pretty lucky that they weren't counted out by themselves. Their most convincing performance that year was probably against Free Shipping, but even then, they lost the weapon for a good portion of the fight.
Tombstone went 2-1 this time, but despite their pedigree, they only got seeded 23rd, and were matched up against Jackpot. In fairness to Tombstone, they were destroying Jackpot for a good portion of the fight, until reliability hit them again, and Jackpot knocked them out. Their final match of the year was in Champions, where they faced Tantrum. A machine that was fed to Tombstone the same way the Romans fed their slaves to the lions. This time, Tantrum was the reigning champion, and they ended up getting their revenge on Tombstone.
It is true that Tombstone isn't the same monster that it was in WCI to WCIV, but that's because the competition now is a lot more durable, and more adept to dealing with big horizontal spinners. That doesn't mean that Tombstone isn't a durable and deadly machine though. If any competitor wants to take a serious step in taking home the Giant Nut, they need a plan to take down Tombstone.
