SAN FRANCISCO, Sept 21 — Humanoid robots have spent plenty of time learning to walk, pick things up and navigate warehouses. REK is trying something a little more dramatic: putting one in a fighting cage.

The U.S. robotics company staged a match between a six-foot humanoid robot and content creator Frankie LaPenna in San Francisco on Sept. 18. The event was tied to REK’s work on a virtual reality combat game in which people remotely control humanoid robots. 

Footage released by REK shows LaPenna throwing punches at the robot as it moves around the cage, throws punches of its own and launches several kicks. One kick appears to send LaPenna across the enclosure. 

REK called the event its first human-versus-humanoid robot fight and said more footage would be released. 

The robot was not fighting autonomously. REK’s format uses human pilots to control the machines remotely, including through virtual reality equipment. A software partner working with REK describes the setup as a person controlling the robot in real time, with an AI-based balance system helping keep it upright. 

That makes the spectacle a little different from the usual humanoid robot demo. The machine is doing the punching and kicking, but there is still a human behind the controls.

REK has been building its robot-fighting concept around that setup for some time. The company has staged live robot matches and developed a multiplayer simulator that lets people practice controlling the machines before stepping into the real ring. 

The robot used in the fight appears to be an EngineAI T800, a roughly 1.73-meter humanoid. Independent reporting identifies the model, while REK and its partners describe the full-height machines used in its events as six-foot robots. 

REK’s X caption called the event the first “Human VS Terminator robot fight.” That is the company’s description, not an independently established record. 

For now, the fight says more about teleoperated robot entertainment than autonomous humanoids. REK has not established in the available material that the machine is being sold for industrial work, operating independently or commercially deployed outside its events.