Storm 2/Controversy

Despite its tremendous success in Robot Wars, Storm 2 was not very popular among the Robot Wars crew and producers. After seeing it in the New Blood competition, they were concerned that the viewing audience would find Storm 2 boring, due to its lack of weapons and the brevity of its matches. They took several measures of somewhat questionable ethic to make sure that the more "exciting" robots prospered.

Weapon Regulations
After Storm 2 won the New Blood Championship, it was granted admission into Series 7 of Robot Wars, but only under the condition that it be fitted with some form of active weapon. The team was taken aback by the implication that their robot was boring, but complied anyway, electing to install a lifting arm. "To be honest we didn't think that the rules needed to change. A flipper or a spinner with a naff weapon makes a boring fight - and it is the job of qualifying to ensure that those robots don't appear on TV."

- Storm 2 website

The Storm team returned to Series 7, with the lifting arm somewhat begrudgingly added. However, Storm 2 still relied mostly on its ramming power to see it through to the semi-finals. Indeed, its ramming proved powerful enough to capably dispense all of its opponents in the heat, and even throw one right out of the arena. However, the producers were not pleased.

"Our emphatic win in the heats of Series 7 hadn't gone un-noticed by the crew and the company that make Robot Wars. Worried by Storm II's cruise to victory in the New Blood competition they had brought in a new rule (to try to exclude heavily armour machines like Storm II) from taking part. Now Storm II was looking as unstoppable as it did during the New Blood competition of Robot Wars Extreme, and the rumours around the pits was that Mentorn (the company that make Robot Wars) weren't happy.  The last thing they wanted after Tornado's win in Series 6 is another 'box' winning the competition"

- Storm 2 website

Firestorm
After defeating The Grim Reaper, Storm 2 faced former Grand Finalist Firestorm 5. Though it powered through the fight, and defeated Firestorm via pit, there was talk of Storm 2 being disqualified on a technicality. The producers were arguing that since Storm 2 had not once fired its flipper during the fight, it had broken the rule about active weapons. The judges however wouldn't hear of it, and refused to disqualify Storm 2.

Tornado
In the Grand Final, Storm 2 was up against the reigning champion Tornado. Storm 2 dominated, and easily won the judges' decision, although unbeknownst to the viewing audience, the match should not have even gone to the judges. At one point in the fight, Storm 2 shoved Tornado into the pit, but to the Storm Team's surprise, the smoke bombs did not go off and "cease" was not called. Instead, the pit was raised up, and Tornado was allowed to drive off and continue fighting. The pit was immediately reopened after Tornado was clear. When shown on TV, that segment of the fight was edited to make it look like Tornado was on the pit square when the pit release was first triggered, and that it had escaped the descending hazard just in time. Despite throwing this dodgy lifeline to Tornado, the producers made no interference when the judges ruled in favour of Storm 2.

"We found ourselves again looking at going into another fight with another example of the producers using what control they had of the arena/rules to try to remove Storm II from the competition. That's twice now.... what next ?"

- Storm 2 website

Typhoon 2
Storm 2's last fight in the UK Championship proved to be one of the most controversial of all.

After Typhoon 2 broke the wall with its spinner, the fight was halted so that the wall could be repaired. In order to maintain continuity, Typhoon was allowed to get spinning up to speed before the fight was resumed. However, Typhoon was having technical difficulties, and refused to spin. Rather than carry on the fight with Typhoon on a wing and a prayer, the producers allowed the Air Cadets to repair Typhoon's weapon during the interim. The Storm team was shocked by this allowance, and when they launched a formal complaint, they were told that the plan was to edit out the wall breaking, and broadcast the fight as if it had never happened.

"We were assured that this wasn't being done to be unfair, but was being done to maintain consistency in the show. We pointed out again that Typhoon had been having problems long before they hit the wall, but it was clear Mentorn didn't care."

- Storm 2 website

The fight was resumed, with Storm 2 facing a nearly-completely repaired Typhoon 2. Still, Storm 2 persevered, and despite losing a small armour panel in the front, hammered Typhoon many times, dislodging some of its chains in the process. The Strom team observed that Typhoon was driving somewhat erratically towards the end, but both robots were still mobile, so it went to a judges' decision.

While the judges made up their minds, the crew got to work cleaning up the arena. They found the drive chains that Typhoon had lost, and offered to toss them up to the booth. At that same moment, Craig Charles was doing interviews with the teams, and he asked the Typhoon team what kind of state their robot was in.

"Knowing that their robot had a damaged weapon system, knowing that they had lost drive to some of their wheels (we all saw Chris Reynolds who looks after the house robots pick up the chains from the floor and tell the Typhoon team they'd put them with the robot) in the interview the Typhoon team claimed that their robot was totally 'undamaged' and that it was 'like new' - not something that we expected, we'd at least expected honesty. Tim, Meral and Ed couldn't believe it. An organization such as the RAF were standing there and at worst lying, at best being very very economical with the truth about the state of their robot."

- Storm 2 website



In the end, the judges ruled that the Series 7 champion was Typhoon 2, the key factor being the damage category, in which they gave Storm 2 zero points. Team Storm was flabbergasted by this ruling; not only did the judges completely overlook the fact that the Air Cadets repaired significant damage while the wall was being fixed, but also the dislodged drive chains. Furthermore, the show made a big fanfare out of the panel that fell off Storm 2, despite the fact that it was purely superficial damage and had barely affected Storm 2's performance. Not surprisingly the Storm team, as well as their fans, felt devastated and cheated by Storm 2's controversial loss. Some went as far as to call for Gary Cairns, Captain of Typhoon 2, to hand his trophy over to the Storm team.

Aftermath
Later that day, shooting began for The Third World Championship, as well as some other side events like the Middleweight Final. The Typhoon team only had one set of batteries between their two upper-weight robots, and would not be able to compete in both events. When they chose to pull out of the World Championship and not the Middleweight competition, it aroused some suspicion amongst the Storm team "Typhoon 2 should have entered the World Championships too, but it mysteriously retired - apparently so that its batteries could be used for a sideshow 'middleweight' final. A strange mix of priorities when you have a robot that's apparently 'fighting fit' and the World Championships to film that day. Typhoon 2 was never seen again at filming, and dropped out of the World Championships with 'technical difficulties' according to the show as opposed to never entering the competition as was the story on the day from the team... Suspicion is that it was in such as state internally after the fight with Storm II, it couldn't compete any longer.  Strange for a robot with 'no damage'  Storm II needed 2 mins with a welder, and we were fighting fit and ready to go."

- Storm 2 website

Supernova
Another incident occurred during the final of the Third World Championship. During the battle, the gyroscopic effects of Supernova's disc caused it to get stuck on the arena sidewall. A self-inflicted stacking is supposed to count as an immobilization, but oddly, Refbot freed it instead of counting it out. Elsewhere in the arena, Shunt placed Storm 2 against a grinder, leaving it at the mercy of Supernova's disc. From the perspective of the viewing audience, this seemed like another underhanded power play by the producers to give the "exciting" robot the victory. While it was true that the producers wanted to make the fight more exciting, there were many factors that the viewing audience did not know about.

"There was total confusion as to what was going on after the fight. No-one seemed to quite know what was happenning."

- Ed Hoppitt on the Fighting Robots Association forum

After Supernova got stuck against the wall, Refbot intended to count it out, but its counter was not working. This was not communicated to anyone but the producers. Left to make their own conclusions, the house roboteers inferred that Storm 2 had won. They thought it would be all in good fun if Shunt stacked Storm 2 against an angle grinder. The Storm team were glad to oblige; they too believed they'd won the fight. However, unbeknownst to the house roboteers and competitors, the producers had ruled that because Supernova was never counted out, it wasn't officially immobilized. They ordered that Supernova be freed from the wall, in hopes that the battle would conclude with a more exciting ending. However, nothing was done to help Storm 2, who was still beached on the angle grinder. The UK representative was eventually freed from the sidewall, but it was now running inverted, which left it in a much more vulnerable position. Though the televised version of the fight went to the judges, the true outcome was very different.

"What was not shown in the coverage was that, 2 of the 3 titanium panels at the front of storm had been torn away. We had some good hits on storm, eventually immobilizing them. The judges decided the storm had won the fight when we were propped against the wall and so gave the fight to them. The fight was a good one, wish they had showed more of us hitting storm when they were upside down. Think it was a dodgy decision, think the judges owed storm from a certain previous fight…"

- Suren Balendran, captain of Supernova, on the FRA forum