Front Loader on Side
Front Loader on Side
Front Loader on Side
Front Loader on Side
Front Loader on Side

When Construction Vehicles Attack!

April 22, 2016
Recently, two feuding concrete companies in China settled a business dispute in the streets with front-end loaders. Is this an incredible display of negligence, or the future of MMA (Machinery Martial Arts)?

On April 17, China’s Xingtang County became too big for both the Xingtang Schmidt and Jianwen mixing companies, so the competitors did the only reasonable thing: settle it in the streets with heavy equipment.

It’s unclear if the rival construction companies predesignated front-end loaders as the melee weapon of choice, or if it was purely coincidence, but those are exactly what the six combatants arrived in.

In a battle of construction behemoths that was only previously seen in various Transformers episodes and your sandbox when you were five, the opposing forces rammed into each other with reckless abandon.

Artist's interpretation of front-end loader fight in China.
Screengrab: youtube/ Hasbro

Onlookers captured the rumble on their camera phones, proving Michael Bay wrong by showing that a fight between giant metal vehicles can be exciting without inducing motion sickness.

Watch it below:

The best part of the fight was when one combatant attempted to pick up his fallen comrade’s vehicle, while the worst part was when someone sustained serious injuries to his chest after being shot with a pellet gun. Surprisingly, only one other driver was injured, though all six vehicles sustained damage, local propaganda office reported.

The feud arose from concrete supply issues, and The New York Times suggests “that China’s slowing growth may be putting intense pressure on the construction industry in some parts of the country.”

The world wants more giant machine fights, and if these two companies were having money problems, they could have just gotten their fight sponsored by some energy drink company, and not resort to a “Rocky V” type back alley brawl.  

There’s still a chance, for fight fans love rematches. And who doesn’t love giant machines smashing into each other? An Oakland-based company that makes giant fighting robots is actually trying to start a giant robot fighting league. To that end, it has a challenged a Japanese giant robot maker to a duel this summer. Maybe this could be the undercard for Kurata and the Mark II.

Or, even better, this could spur a league of their own. You can’t just have front-end loaders, though. As cool as it sounds, it would get boring fast. So here are five other pieces of heavy equipment that we’d want to see in a fight.

[Please don’t try these at home…or anywhere else.]

CAT Fight

Caterpillar D11T Dozer

Pitting two Caterpillar D11T dozers against each other would finally answer what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. The 229,800-lb earth mover’s blade has a box-section design that makes it extra durable, and should last for several bouts. The wide treads should also keep it from tipping over.

Hydraulic Haymakers

PC455MR-5 Hydraulic Excavator

Leading up to the heavyweights, why not have a few bouts that show off an operator’s finesse? The 5.5-ton PC455MR-5 hydraulic excavators from Komatsu America Corp. would fill this requirement nicely. The tight tail swing radius and 77-in. track width would allow for matches in smaller venues, and could possibly pave the way for a backyard wrestling version of the sport.

Crane-style

Liebherr LTM 11200-9.1 mobile crane

Reach is always important in a fight, and the Liebherr LTM 11200-9.1 mobile crane has a 100-m boom, and a 1,200-m lifting capacity, both close to the most in the world. A fight between these would probably be best held outside city limits.

Grind Your Gears

Morbark MXG50 Stump Grinder

As you’re getting your lawn ready for the summer, you may need to clear away some unsightly tree stumps. In that case, you could call a landscaper to deal with it, or rent a stump grinder to obliterate it yourself. It’s quite a gratifying feeling, and probably what sadistic dentists feel when ripping out your wisdom teeth. Pitting two stump grinders, like the Morbark MXG50, against each other would probably be most satisfying of all.

The grinder has a 21.5-in. max cutting height and max cutting depth of 16 in. They can be remote controlled, so you don’t have to worry about catching flak when grinding your opponent into the ground.

Trench warfare

Ditch Witch C12 Walk-Behind Trencher

Remote controlled equipment fights does increase the safety factor by about 1,000, but how many people would watch NASCAR is it there were no drivers risking their lives for fame and glory?

In that vein, we humbly submit the Ditch Witch C12 Walk-Behind Trencher, which as the name suggests, would require the opponents to push these like a lawnmower. Unlike a lawnmower, it’s a tank with a chainsaw at the front, though.

Of course, we don’t really think these should be used for anything other than to rip some badass trenches or battle zombie hordes. And it also shows it was a good thing those were Chinese concrete mixing companies, and not landscapers.