Forum:Producer Interference

Can anyone list any times where they believe the producers of the show (possible via the drivers of the house robots, or the judges) interfered in the results of battles in order to get a more favourable outcome? For one example, there is no way that Killalot had any right to pit Killertron in the Mayhem, but I believe they did so to get the robot they considered better, Splinter, in the Annihilator. Splinter was losing that battle. I also believe that putting Chaos 2 against Steg 2 and giving the judges decision to Dominator 2 instead of Firestorm 2 was a plot to get different Grand Finalists. Any other ideas?  Toon Ganondorf    (t    c)  00:22, 9 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Maybe the Series 5 Heat with Hypnodisc and Atomic. Usually the 2 seeds don't meet until the heat final, maybe they thought Bulldog Breed would beat Hypno or Atomic easily.


 * Chaos 2 vs S.M.I.D.S.Y was a more blatant example; if it were the higher-seeded machine stuck on the wall, I guarantee that Refbot would have freed it, and then counted out the one who'd turned turtle.


 * And this one's just going out on a limb, but I think that the second All-Stars championship was designed to put as much distance as possible between Razer and Tornado in order to prevent another Razer vs Tornado battle. What tips me off is that there were 3 grand finalists in one heat, and only one in the other.

'''R A 2 ; [http://www.youtube.com/user/ResettisReplicas aka Resetti's Replicas. ] ( My Talk )''' 03:14, 9 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't see why they would've put Hypno-Disc and Atomic 2 together for that reason. Hypno-Disc could have defeated Bulldog Breed and then Atomic 2 in the final. It would have not made a difference.


 * Another one is the producers putting Wheely Big Cheese through instead of Suicidal Tendencies; they believed it was the more interesting robot.


 * Firestorm 2 vs the Morgue is another example of the same thing. A robot in the pit, but the tiny loopholes were exploited enough to put the more interesting robot through.  Toon Ganondorf    (t    c)  09:25, 2 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Correction, the judges sent through the robot that was mobile. Morgue was pitted (technically) and Suicidal Tendencies had broken down. Nothing to do with the producers at all. CBFan 08:30, 2 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, but I doubt they would have been so technical about it had it been the other way around. Suicidal Tendencies had only broken down on one side before Wheely Big Cheese went in the pit, so it doesnt really count as fully immobile, and The Morgue was hardly pitted, but of course the producers would rather send through a seed than the robot who had already been eliminated once. If there is a technicality that will allow them to put through another robot, they use it.  Toon Ganondorf    (t    c)  09:25, 2 August 2009 (UTC)


 * My final one is the blatantly obvious favouritism of Mortis. Napalm had beaten Mortis, but the producers gave them another try because they prefer Mortis. Their excuse was that technical failures unfairly affected them, but did Panzer get another shot? Did Plunderstorm get another try? No.  Toon Ganondorf    (t    c)  03:57, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Oh, and how about Hypnodisc vs Dominator 2? When Dominator 2 was clearly going on just one wheel, and instead of counting it out, they let the clock run out. I'm guessing they did this in hopes that Dominator would make a comeback because they didn't want the same Grand Fianlist three years straight. '''R A 2 ; [http://www.youtube.com/user/ResettisReplicas aka Resetti's Replicas. ] ( My Talk )''' 21:38, 9 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah, especially after such a boring performance in the Semis. How about Behemoth vs Razer in All-Stars of Extreme 1. Despite Behemoth having immobilised Razer for at least 30 seconds, they let time run down and gave the win to Razer.  Toon Ganondorf    (t    c)  00:36, 10 July 2009 (UTC)


 * It looks to me as if Behemoth held Razer under its scoop against the wall for a while in that fight, hence explaining why it wasn't counted out. But speaking of Behemoth, there are a couple of occasions that spring to mind.


 * Series 3 Heat B Final- Behemoth flipped Pitbull, but Dead Metal righted it. The arena floor spike flipped over Behemoth and Dead Metal attacked it.


 * Extreme 2 Iron Maidens- Behemoth flipped over Chompalot, then Shunt righted it. Shunt then hacked into Behemoth until its power link popped out.
 * ManUCrazy 22:01, 22 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Another Behemoth vs Razer in the first world championship, Razer was immobilised on the flame pit then Dead Metal helped right it. My theory is that the producers didn't want Razer losing out at another chance of "glory" Llamaman201 (talk) 19:51, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

On the Storm team's website, they talk about how the producers didn't approve of their "boring" design, and about several times that they blatantly interfered with Storm 2's progress:

After Storm 2 pitted Firestorm, the producers argued that Storm 2 hadn't used its lifting arm at all during the battle, thus breaking the rule that every robot must have an active weapon, as as such, should be disqualified. (I was floored when I read that I seem to recall Jayne loudly calling UFO "a weaponless robot" in its opening match, but it somehow was still allowed to progress) Thankfully, the producers were overruled.

During the match against Tornado, Refbot pushed the pit release, and Storm 2 pushed Tornado into the pit. The pit was then raised so that Tornado could escape, and the fight continued to the end, as you saw on TV.

Finally, there was that controversial judges' decision in the Grand Final. As you know, Typhoon broke the wall, so they allowed it to get it up to full spinning speed before resuming the fight. What you didn't see was that Typhoon's weapon system was not working at first, so the producers allowed them to get it working again in the interim, thus negating most of the damage it had suffered. This was not brought up when the judges were making the decision. In addition, Typhoon lost a couple drive belts during the fight, however Storm 2 somehow scored zero points on damage. The audience booed the judges' decision so loudly that Mentorn was forced to dub it over with cheers.

All in all, a very unfortunate experience Storm 2, it's quite clear that Mentorn harboured personal hatred towards the robot. I can't help but wonder what would've happened if BBC had held onto Robot Wars until the end, maybe it would've been different. '''R A 2 ; [http://www.youtube.com/user/ResettisReplicas aka Resetti's Replicas. ] ( My Talk )''' 19:23, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

I think producer interference was the cause of why the gauntlet and trial were removed, for example Series 2 was a big interference, Piece de Resistance was lifted over the wall by Sir killalot. Another big one was on the sumo ring, if you watch carefully, the house robot would sometimes push a robot off with relative ease and then do the same to another robot but leave it hang on the edge while the house robot reverses, stops and then slowly edged the robot off. Llamaman201 (talk) 19:51, 20 July 2009 (UTC)


 * That does sound right, as in the Tug of War, notably, Wheelosaurus was toyed with, whilst others were pulled straight off, and if it had been even, there is no way that Wheelosaurus would have survived if the House Robot had yanked straight away.  Toon Ganondorf    (t    c)  22:20, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure about this one but, Wild Thing vs Prizephita Mach 2, because I seem to remember Prizephita dominating the battle? Llamaman201 (talk) 11:38, 22 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I disagree, as I believe that Wild Thing did in fact do enough to win. Maybe I should watch it again.  Toon Ganondorf    (t    c)  11:45, 22 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm not really sure I was just watching the series 5 recap and saw that prizephita was looking better and then Craig asked them if they felt cheated by the judges. Llamaman201 (talk) 21:01, 22 July 2009 (UTC)


 * You should probably watch the full battle then. I was under the same impression myself based on the Series 5 recap, but the full battle is different.  Toon Ganondorf    (t    c)  00:09, 23 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Trouble & Strife took severe damage late on from Matilda in that same heat. ManUCrazy 22:01, 22 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Ming 3 vs. Terrorhurtz, does this need an explanation? And the infamous hypocracy in Series 6 where Sir Chromalot were unable to self right for around 25-30 seconds to the end of the round and were put through and yet in the very next heat, 259 broke down just before the ten second timer came up and were ruled out. I mean they can't honestly say BOTH those decisions were fair either a robot immobilised on the cease is out or it isn't, either 259 should have gone through OR Sir Chromalot should have gone out. CaptainAlex(talk) 22:30, 22 July 2009 (UTC)


 * That's definitely true. They didn't want to drop out Wild Thing, which they would have had to do if they were going to stick by their previous decision to keep in Sir Chromalot.  Toon Ganondorf    (t    c)  00:09, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Or what about the All-Stars clash in Series 7, where Bigger Brother drove onto the decending pit, then was quickly raised back out. I don't know if it REALLY actually counts, but it's still there.

But the most infamous of all has to be the whole Mortis-Napalm drama. Yeah, Toon Gganondorf already mentioned it, but there's also another point to make...Mortis, on its second run, actually scored LESS points than Napalm did. The House Robots actually had to deliberately score some of the points for it. CBFan 12:49, 29 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I also think that the House Robots left Hard alone for a while despite its obvious immobilisation in the hope that Bulldog Breed would get it out of the arena. After it failed several times, the realised that it wasnt going to happen and finished the battle.  Toon Ganondorf    (t    c)  05:56, 1 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Hard was long immobilised, so that's hardly "producer interference". CBFan 08:29, 2 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm not arguing with that, my argument is that they made the House Robots stay back despite its obvious immobilisation in the hope that Bulldog Breed would flip it out of the arena.  Toon Ganondorf    (t    c)  09:25, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm surprised no one's mentioned this...the Series 4 heat line-up. Heat F should have featured the 11th and 27th seeds, as correct to the order they were going in, but instead, it had the 8th and 24th seeds. Why? The answer, to me, is obvious...they wanted to see Gemini vs Chaos 2 as soon as possible. I bet if Tornado hadn't won, the semi-final line-up would have been very different. CBFan 08:33, 2 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I hadn't thought of it like that, but it makes sense. Do you also think that Heat H, which, by consistency, should have featured Wheely Big Cheese and Centurion, had Suicidal Tendencies replacing Centurion, and Heat I, which, by consistency, should have featured Killerhurtz and Suicidal Tendencies, had Centurion instead?  Toon Ganondorf    (t    c)  09:25, 2 August 2009 (UTC)