Dress Rehearsals

Dress Rehearsals
Seasons	World Championship I - World Championship VI

Dress Rehearsals, sometimes known as Demo Fights, are untelevised battles staged between two robots with the sole purpose of testing the cameras, sound and lighting prior to recording an entire season's worth of fights. These dress rehearsals have been seen in almost every reboot season of BattleBots since its 2015 revival on ABC, with footage or even images scarcely seen.

In more recent seasons, participating teams were specifically instructed to drive to different areas of the BattleBox, in order to test filming in those areas of the arena. This was notably vital with the addition of the Upper Deck in 2021, as cameras needed to be able to get good angles of the action with the addition of the short corners, as well as the raised platform in the arena.

Known Dress Rehearsal Fights

World Championship I
Chronic vs. Swamp Thing Swamp Thing chases Chronic in the opening seconds. Swamp Thing attacks Chronic after losing its tail. Perhaps the best-known of the dress rehearsal fights to date, a battle between two reserve robots was held ahead of World Championship I as the first battle of the modern BattleBots era. Swamp Thing, then of Hardcore Robotics, fought the British flipper Chronic. Swamp Thing won the battle by judges' decision. Footage of this battle has never been made public, but still shots do exist courtesy of Hardcore Robotics.
World Championship II
Unconfirmed It is currently unconfirmed whether a dress rehearsal fight occurred for the second season on ABC.
World Championship III
Red Devil vs. Monsoon Ahead of filming for World Championship III, then-newcomer Monsoon took on Red Devil. Monsoon was declared the "winner" in a fight where neither robot used their weapons in order to preserve the robots for the main competition ahead. This was the only instance of a dress rehearsal battle which actually played out during the main season, and Monsoon won that as well. No images or footage of this dress rehearsal fight are known to exist.
World Championship IV
Free Shipping vs. Foxtrot Free Shipping in the red square. Foxtrot in the blue square. The tradition continued prior to World Championship IV, as two non-spinners met in the form of Free Shipping and Foxtrot. Forrest Yeh of Team Special Delivery posted to Instagram teasing the battle in the freshly-painted BattleBox, with Free Shipping in the red square and Foxtrot in the blue square. According to Craig Danby on Reddit, Foxtrot was declared the winner.
World Championship V
Tantrum vs. Skorpios For World Championship V, Tantrum took on Skorpios. It is unknown whether this dress rehearsal fight produced a winner.
World Championship VI
Skorpios vs. Kraken Skorpios is instructed to drive into the short corner. Skorpios and Kraken remain idle for practice of a countout. Skorpios again took part in the World Championship VI dress rehearsal, as one of the first teams to pass pre-competition checks, this time against Kraken. This was documented in Episode 38 of the team's Builder Blog series. Again, it was not confirmed whether a winner was officially declared, though the "fight" largely consisted of the robots being instructed to drive in and out of the areas surrounding the Upper Deck, then still painted yellow, in order to see how its presence would affect their camerawork.
World Championship VII
Once again, Skorpios was selected for the dress rehearsal fight for World Championship VII. They were not called up, however, as production did not deem a rehearsal necessary, according to Diana Tarlson. "They lined us up for it. But didn't end up using us. They got the lighting on their own, best 30 minutes ever." — Diana Tarlson on the lack of a dress rehearsal. HyperShock team member Kyle Awner has confirmed that they were also asked, but had to decline.

Trivia

• Skorpios is the only robot to have participated in multiple dress rehearsal fights, in 2020 and 2021.