Media Essays: The Career of Dominator 2

Whenever you think of great robots, the most common ones that come to mind will usually be armed with flippers, lifters, spinners or crushers. But if there's one kind of robot that tends to get overlooked, it's axe bots. Robots armed with axes aren't always the most popular machines out there, and with today's version of robot combat, it's very rare you'll even see a robot armed with an axe since axes just don't seem as effective as they used to be. That was a whole different story back in the classic era of Robot Wars when axe bots could be pretty deadly and just as fearsome as a spinner or a crusher bot. For this post, we're going to give axe bots the respect they deserve by covering one of the most famous axe bots of them all...Dominator 2.

Originating from Huntington, Dominator 2 is a wedge-shaped robot that might possibly be the famous successful robot armed with an axe in the show's history with a very impressive win record of 18 against 6 losses. Curiously, it had this repeated pattern of always making it to the second round of the semi-finals, but then it never got further. Despite its many wins, it's also like Hypno-Disc in how it never won any major events or tournaments. It even holds the dubious record of being the most successful robot to never win an award or a tournament due to its 18 wins I mentioned earlier. And yet Dominator 2 has clearly left its mark on Robot Wars, and I don't mean the ones it would leave in its opponents by swinging its axe on them! The machine would go on to appear in merchandise such as getting a collectible die-cast pullback minibot, would get profiled in various Robot Wars guide books and appearing in various video-games such as Advanced Destruction and every version of Extreme Destruction. The machine is also notable for several records, which I'll go over in the essay.

So what made Dominator 2 such a fearsome machine? Which battles did it dominate and which ones did it get dominated itself? Let's find out...

Dominator's Beginnings

Since we're talking about Dominator 2, you might be wondering the obvious...was there a Dominator 1? The answer? Yes there was! And as you can see, it was a very different machine to what we would get later on.

This version of Dominator was 79 kgs in weight, had a box shape with a wedge at the rear, a large cosmetic jaw, a flame deco paint scheme and was armed with a titanium tipped spike at the front that was stationed within the jaw itself. It had eyes on the top that were illuminated and were designed and built by the team captain himself, Peter Halloway. On the official Dominator 2 website, they had this to say about the robot:

"Dominator 1 was our first attempt at a robot, and with hindsight, we started from completely the wrong place, which was the gearboxes. These are needed to achieve about an 8:1 reduction from the motors. We were not initially at all weight conscious (80 kilos sounds a lot) and the superbly over-engineered gearboxes (much admired at Elstree) mopped up most of the weight which should have gone into WEAPONS!"

— Dominator 2 website

This pretty much explains why the machine is the way it is and why it had no real weapons to speak of. The weight was taken up mostly by the gearboxes and at the time of Series 3, 80kgs was the weight limit, so they literally didn't have the extra weight necessary to add on a better weapon. Not that it needed weapons anyway.

Dominator's career was VERY short compared to its iconic sequel. All it did was compete in the Series 3 Pinball Warriors Tournament and that was it. It didn't even get a single battle so we never got to see how it would do in a fight. It did very well at the Pinball at least, scoring 160 points in total and finishing as runner-up. If Razer hadn't competed as well, chances are it could've won. So why didn't Dominator appear in anything else in Season 3? It's a bit unfortunate because apparently, they DID attempt to qualify for the series itself. But the machine was unpainted and unfinished by the time they showed up, so they weren't selected for the main competition. Pinball was all they could get as a result. I guess the crew didn't want to waste too much time waiting for Dominator to be ready and risk upsetting the show's schedules, so Pinball was their only compromise.

Next time, Dominator would get its time to shine once its second form entered the arena...

Dominator Gets A Spiky Upgrade

Here we are, the machine we all know and love is here!

A drastic change from its predecessor, Dominator 2 was a wedged double-V shaped robot and this time, had an actual weapon at its disposal, this being its signature axe. It was a strong aircraft-grad aluminium axe powered by a 150PSI pneumatic ram that produced 1.5 tonnes (12 kgs) of pressure. It moved it a speed of 10 metres a second on impact from an acceleration linkage and 20 MPH top speed that was propelled by two industrial 1HP motors. Interestingly, early designs showcased Dominator 2 with a spiked mace weapon rather than an axe, but they changed it to the spiked axe before it was completion. The axe had spikes on the sides to help the robot self-right itself by swinging it, which proved handy when dealing with flippers.

This one applies to all of Dominator 2's appearances: the weapon was powered by a pair of 24 Volt, 750 Watt Bosch industrial motors, which gave it a top speed of 20mph. Pretty speedy, I must say. The machine used a large amount of CNC (which stands for Computer Numerical Control) machining in its design, as Paul Tolliday mentioned in the team's Series 5 interview, with the working being done by Hurco Europe. Interestingly, the axe mechanism was inspired by a Meccano set of all things. This quote below explains all:

"A Meccano set belonging to Paul Tolliday's children, Simon and Ben, provided him with the inspiration for the axe mechanism. It's designed so small changes in the pivot points provide large changes in the overall movement of the arm. This causes an increase in the acceleration of the arm in the last third of the movement. But this does bring about another problem. "We're forever creating new weak spots" says Paul. For example, the recoil of the arm was then so strong than a damping device was needed on the backstop. The cross-section of the arm was also vital to its strength. Originally, the axe arm was a length of titanium tubing, but it was found to bend on impact. A cross-section shaped like a capital "I" was found to give an eight-fold increase to the strength of the aluminium arm."

— Ultimate Real Robots on the axe mechanism

Now how about that unusual looking armour? Dominator 2 was armoured with plasma nitride-coated titanium, which apparently is the same titanium used on Russian nuclear submarines. Whoa, how about that? One of the team's sponsors, Titanium International, provided the titanium itself and it was cut by Rowley Engineering, then welded by TWI. It was originally 1.8mm thick (6.5mm at the front and back) and was increased to 3.5mm around the sides and back and 7mm at the front in 2001. So how did Domiator 2 get its iconic golden hue? Apparently, plasma nitride-coating is a process where an an object is heated in a very hot furnace, then bombarded with nitrogen, forming a nitride plasma coating, which made the shell stronger, smoother and more resistant to cutting blades. That in turn gave it its golden hue. Crazy how so much stuff goes on to create certain things, am I right? As for the flames on the side, they were added after the team qualified due to series producer, Bill Hobbins, suggesting the team add some visual appeal to the robot, and also add some aerosol paint to make the gold nitride finish shine under the studio lights.

The robot had two-wheel drive, with foam-filled tyres from go-karts. They were exposed in Series 4 and Extreme, but wheel-guards would be added in for Series 5 onwards.

Dominator 2 had an...turbulent time getting on TV, and that's no exaggeration! No joke, they fought in a couple of qualifier battles and BOTH times they lost because the link fell out! That's crazy! And yet, against all odds, they STILL qualified for the series! This was down to positive audience reception and strong performances it had prior to the link falling out in its battles. Goes to show it really isn't about winning and losing when it comes to achieving success, eh? In order to stop the link falling out, the link was changed to a larger 175amp model and was repositioned at the rear of the robot. Considering Dominator 2 never lost a fight thanks to the link falling out, I think it's safe to say that it worked. They also made some modifications to prevent the axe handling bending like it did in the qualifiers. At least in the next two seasons it showed up in, it didn't have to go through the hassle of qualifying since seeded machines automatically qualify.

Dominator 2 made its series debut in Heat E of Series 4 in which it battled the 9th seeds 101 and Henry 2 in the first round melee. The battle holds the record for the fastest immobilization in the classic era of Robot Wars. See the picture above? Dominator 2 literally hit Henry 2 ONCE with that axe and killed it stone dead! How fast did it happen? 2.6 seconds! While not the fastest immobilization in the show's history (for the UK show, that's Concussion vs. Terror Turtle from the reboot era and for the US series, DrillZilla vs. Ripper Raptor holds the record for the fastest immobilization in Robot Wars period at 1 second), it's still insane that Dominator 2, in its first ever televised battled, sped towards Henry 2, swung its axe down, hit it in the rear and that killed it instantly! Talk about a one in a million shot! So you might be wondering how Dominator 2 immobilized Henry 2 so quickly? Apparently, the axe hit the machine's carburettor cable, which cut off the fuel line to the engine, hence why Henry 2 died instantly.

Because of that, Dominator 2 and 101 qualified and in the second round, Dominator 2 battle the 25th seeds, Shadow of Napalm. It was no contest since the Napalm robots all tend to be junk, and Dominator 2 won again. They made it to the Heat Final in where they battled 101 once more and beat them on a judge's decision, winning mostly on damage due to their fearsome axe. Not bad, eh? They went from runners-up in a Pinball competition to winning

a heat on their first try! Talk about making a strong first impression!

Now a semi-finalist, Dominator 2 was up against the 5th seeds, Firestorm 2. This battle is often considered by fans to be among the closest battles ever recorded. Ask any Robot Wars fan about this battle and I guarantee, you'll get both sides arguing that Dominator 2 deserved the win or that Firestorm 2 should've won. If you want my opinion, I think the decision was the correct one and Dominator 2 deserved it as they caused more damage with their axe, were stylish with their self-righting and were pretty aggressive throughout, whereas Firestorm 2 was also aggressive and well controlled, but that's about it. The victory was almost a pyrrhic one though, for one of Dominator 2's batteries had destroyed itself near the end of the battle with Firestorm 2 and the team had to work hard and fast to get the machine fighting fit for their battle with Pussycat.

Speaking of, this battle was one of three times Dominator 2 would make it to the second stage of the semi-finals and then get defeated. The battle with Pussycat also went to the judge's, but this battle wasn't as close and had a more clear winner. Pussycat's unique design combined with David Gribble's driving and its vicious blade gave Dominator a lot of trouble and the exposed wheels didn't help Dominator's case at all as Pussycat was able to attack them and even get the blade into Dominator's armour and nearly pull it off! Seriously, it's pretty funny to watch. It's like Pussycat's trying to strip the robot naked or something. XD The damage was great enough for Pussycat to win the decision and Dominator 2's run was brought to an end. But it wasn't the end for them in Series 4.

The Huntingdon machine returned for the Northern Annihilator, one of many Christmas specials that were hosted after Series 4 was concluded. The machine went up against Spikasaurus, Stinger, Suicidal Tendencies, Chaos 2 and Killerhurtz. This tournament was the closest Dominator 2 got to winning anything major as they more or less just, ahem, dominated the whole thing. Throughout the entire Annihilator, they kept axing and damaging opponents and just seemed to be the top dogs. Even Chaos 2 barely stood a chance against them and went out in the first round! Dominator 2 especially seemed to have it for Killerhurtz as throughout the Annihilator, they spent much of it attacking them. Maybe they wanted to prove who had the better axe? However, in the final against Spikasaurus, Dominator 2 was on top of the battle...and then suddenly broke down, costing them the fight and leaving Spikasaurus, the underdog of the whole annihilator, as the winner. It's quite a shocking turn-up for the books, let me tell you! So what happened? Why did they conk out in the end? I'll let Elliot Smart answer that question:

"Unfortunately for us, in what should have been our finest hour, the plates inside one of the two batteries decided to part company with the battery terminals, and left us high and dry, the trophy going to Spikesaurus!"

— Elliott Smart explains Dominator 2's breakdown on the Dominator 2 website

Don't you just hate it when that happens? Your machine's doing so well and then something like that just happens and screws you over? I know Behemoth has had quite a history of that...

Overall, Dominator 2 had an amazing debut and finished quite strongly. Making it to the Top 8 of Series 4 AND finishing as a runner-up in the Northern Annihilator? That's a great way to start off! Now let's see if they can achieve further success...

An Extreme-ly Brief Run

Dominator 2 returned for Robot Wars: Extreme, and as the title mentioned, it was a very brief return. No joke, they literally only showed up for TWO battles in the entire series! The first was in the All-Stars Tournament in where they lost to Wild Thing on a Judge's Decision and the second was the Wild Card Warriors battle in where they defeated newcomer The Executioner after it drove into the pit. So yeah, Dominator 2 had a literally 50-50 record as they had one loss and one win in Extreme. It's also funny to watch the two battles because in the All-Stars Tournament, the wheels are still exposed as you can see...

...but then in the Wild Card warriors battle, they added wheel guards since their loss to Wild Thing was largely down to the damage Wild Thing did to their wheels. I think the machine looks way better with the wheel guards as it always looked somewhat incomplete without them. They also redid the flame deco on the sides to accommodate.

Extreme didn't have much to talk about for Dominator 2, so let's move on to Series 5 where we have much more to cover...

Dominator 2 Axes Its Way To The Semi-Finals

Dominator 2 returned for Series 5, seeded 11th due to their performance last time. For upgrades, the machine had a gyro added for better control and Aviation Metals Ltd, part of the Apollo Group, provided sheets of 3.25 thick titanium for its shell. The welding was done by The Welding Institute (very creative name there...).

For this series, Dominator 2, once again, had a pretty dominant run in its heat, easily dispatching of Derek! in Round 1, winning a Judge's Decision against King B Powerworks and conquering Corkscrew in the Heat Final after they managed to use their unique wedge-shaped design to tip them over. It's always fun to see a machine winning against another in more ways than just using their weapons.

The semi-finals were a tough one for Dominator 2 as in Round 1, they faced off against Wheely Big Cheese and were flipped around a few times, including one particularly powerful flip that launched them so high in the air they nearly touched the ceiling! Despite that, Dominator 2 survived the impact and was able to win after Wheely Big Cheese suddenly conked out. No doubt Dominator was thinking "Huh, funny, that happened to me once." as it happened. Then come the second round, they were against Hypno-Disc. Sheesh, it's like the producers wanted to make sure Dominator 2 wouldn't make it to the Grand Final! As we know, they didn't as Hypno-Disc hit them a few times until they lost drive on one side and then Hypno-Disc held back until the time ran out and won on a Judge's Decision. This battle, until Foxic vs. M.R. Speed Squared in the reboot, was considered the most boring fight in Robot Wars history, and even I have to wonder what the hell was going on here. Dominator 2 was clearly immobilized on one side! Why wasn't it counted out? All it could do was spin in circles! And why did Hypno-Disc hold back for the rest of the fight? I get they didn't want to risk suffering any damage prior to the Grand Final, but surely they could've tried hitting Dominator 2 a few more times to try and knock it out? There was no reason the battle had to turn out the way it did! Refbot should've counted Dominator 2 out and saved us some precious time!

Ah well, Dominator 2 was out of the competition once more after a pretty dominant heat run and a tough semi-final run. Still, they did excellently overall, so nothing to be ashamed of aside from the battle with Hypno-Disc ending up being boring.

Dominator 2's Best Series Yet

Dominator 2 was back once more in Series 6, and funnily enough seeded 6th for the series. For this series, the machine sported a thickened shell with doubled titanium critical areas and the axe had increased gas size, gas flow and a bigger regulator. This made it a lot faster and more powerful. Sadly, the machine no longer sported its iconic golden paint-scheme and flame decals, going instead for a silver coat that, to me, is just not the same. It's like having Behemoth without its yellow and black warning stripe patterns, or Panic Attack without the spider on top, it just feels like Dominator 2's abandoned its identity and just doesn't look as interesting. There WAs a reason for it though...

"The Robot has been constantly resprayed to keep up appearances at all sorts of events, and was now carrying over half a kilo of excess paint! This led to the paint being stripped, and because it did not move, Paul polished it!"

— Dominator 2 website

Does paint seriously add that much extra weight to a robot? That is bizarre...

This series saw Dominator 2 at its best in my eyes. It managed to conquer its first round melee against Hydra, Sump Thing and Axe-C-Dent II despite Hydra getting some flips on the axe bot and in the second round, Dominator 2 put its axe to good use against S.M.I.D.S.Y., especially when they managed to stick the axe straight into their wheels a few times. It won the battle on a Judge's Decision and battled Hydra once again in the Heat Final. Hydra started off dominant, getting some good flips on Dominator 2 and turning them over a few times, but Dominator 2 lasted out and made a solid comeback as Hydra seemed to be showing fatigue from the battle. This allowed Dominator 2 to win another Judge's Decision and make it to the semi-finals once more.

The semi-finals saw them battle against Bigger Brother, and surprisingly they proved to be a tougher opponent for Bigger Brother than they expected and Dominator managed to hold their own until they began to own the battle in the second half, which granted them another victory via the judges. But Dominator 2's run came to an end when they battled against Tornado. Tornado proved too tricky for them to handle due to their speed and low wedge, and despite a wacky moment where Matilda launched Tornado in the air with her flywheel and sent them dangerously close to the pit, Dominator 2 jumped the gun a little and accidentally drove in themselves. Whoops. XD To think if Matilda did end up launching Tornado into the pit, this could've been Dominator 2's first time ever making a Grand Final. Sadly for Dominator, this was their last chance to try it, but we'll get to that shortly...

An All-Star Finale

Dominator 2 would make one last appearance in the Extreme II All-Stars Tournament in where they got revenge on Hypno-Disc by attacking them and axing them until they were knocked out, allowing it and Spawn Again to progress to the next round. Sadly, Dominator 2 didn't get any further as they were damaged by 13th Black and ended up being stuck driving on one side (again), which cost them a Judge's Decision against the roulette spinner bot. At least this fight wasn't boring. XD It's not like Dominator 2 would've won anyway since if they bet 13th Black, they would've ended up against Razer and no way would they have beaten Razer.

And thus, that was the last time we ever saw Dominator 2 in Robot Wars. Now apparently, they WERE supposed to appear in Series 7, and would've been seeded 4th...which makes no sense to me since they didn't finish 4th in Series 6, but never mind. This was revealed via the Robot Wars Club newsletter and in the official Series 7 programme, it was credited as a seeded machine. But...they didn't appear in the end. Dominator 2 was Sir-Not-Appearing-In-This-Series. Why was that? It's tricky to say for sure, because the now inactive Official Robot Wars Forums stated they withdrew due to mechanical problems. However, Team Dominator could not recall the circumstances of their absence from Series 7 when Robot Wars wiki user ToastUltimatum had a private correspondence with them in 2020 and asked about it. So chances are, we may never know the reason or if those old forums were true. Still, this meant Dominator 2's days were over and given they didn't return for the reboot, we never got to see them battle again. However...

Post Robot Wars Life

...the team weren't quite done with robot combat yet. Dominator 2 had battled in live events outside of Robot Wars before and after their withdrawal from Series 7, they ended up making a brand new machine, this one being called Dominator 3. The machine reused many of its predecessor's components and abandoned the bi-wedge design in favour of a conventional wedge shape, which made it closely resemble the Series 6/Extreme II version of Kat 3, Dominator 2's original shell was scrapped following Dominator 3's construction.

Dominator 3 would compete in competitions and live events from 2004 to 2005 before the team retired from robot combat after Peter Halloway moved to Deal in Kent and took the robot with him. Peter currently works as an engineering lecturer at Dover Technical College and occasionally brings out Dominator 3 for open days. After long time out of the spot light, Dominator 3 is scheduled to appear as a display at the Extreme Robots Maidstone event in October later this year. This will mark Peter and Dominator's return to a robot combat event for the first time in 21 years. While it's only there as a display and not to do any actual combat, this is still quite an occasion and any Robot Wars fans attending this event better enjoy it while they can. Cause who knows if Dominator 3 will appear again after that, and if it'll ever return to combat...

Conclusion

And thus concludes the story of Dominator 2. Quite a fascinating machine, am I right? It proved how axes could be very efficient weapons and that you don't always need to have a flashy weapon or put up an explosive battle to be entertaining and memorable in combat. Sometimes good driving, a solid construction and a sharp axe can be all you need to win battles and even if the team never won any tournaments or awards, they always put up a fantastic display that saw them get far. I mean reaching the second round of the semi-finals THREE TIMES IN A ROW?! That's quite a record! In fact, it has a few records to its name. It's one of eight robots to fight in more than one UK Championship and never fail to reach a semi-final, it holds the record for defeating the most amount of Tag Team Terror contestants despite never being in the Tag Team Terror itself, it scored the quickest immobilization in the classic era of UK Robot Wars and it was the first robot to win a heat by defeating two seeded robots in one episode. Also, despite never winning anything major, it still boasts one of the best win rates in the show's history. I mean 18 combat victories against 6 losses? That's an impressive score. Dominator 2 really was a machine that, well, dominated the screen and it's no wonder it remains such a memorable and beloved machine to this day...

And that's it for this essay. I hope you enjoyed learning about Dominator 2 and I invite you all to share your thoughts down below. What's your favourite Dominator 2 battle and what, in your eyes, is Dominator 2's most iconic moment? Do let me know!

To see more Robot Wars essays, see the master post here: Robot Wars: Masterpost

Next week, we're talking about another Robot Wars machine, and this one might have you craving chicken by the time we're done... See you then media fans!

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