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Humanoid robots have proven to be capable of many things recently. The scientists making them claim this is a good thing as these robots will “help” us do things as they become mass-produced. One of those things is something that many of us may not have seen coming though: humanoid robots punching and kicking each other in a boxing ring.
Called, appropriately enough, Robot Kombat (you know, like Mortal Kombat with a K instead of a C), the group describes themselves on social media as “Building Real Steal IRL.” (Just ignore the fact that it’s actually Real Steel. Maybe they meant to spell it that way.)
Regardless, this week a new video of these humanoid robots fighting it out at the China Media Group (CMG) World Robot Tournament – Mecha Fighting Series, which is now a thing that actually exists.
According to Global Times and CMG, the tournament “is the world’s first combat sports event centered around humanoid robots.”
The humanoid robots in the competition, all of them from Unitree Robotics, were controlled by humans in real-time, according to the event’s organizer. The robots are capable of straight punches, hook punches, side kicks, aerial spin kicks, and can even get up from the ground after being knocked down.
“The robots fight in a human-machine collaborative way,” Chen Xiyun, a marketing team member of Unitree Robotics, told the Global Times.
Humanoid robot fights have officially begun. pic.twitter.com/qy1E5wHwFq
— CIX 🦾 (@cixliv) May 25, 2025
Industry experts said such robot battles provide high-pressure, fast-paced scenarios that test robotic structure, motion control and AI decision-making capabilities. The contest is expected to drive innovation in perception, control and execution technology, while creating a “train-through-competition” talent pipeline for China’s fast-growing robotics sector.
Basically, this is yet another way of training humanoid robots ways to eventually defeat humans. The goal, developers say, is to eventually create even lighter and smarter robots who can do this and other tasks. So when the end eventually comes and the robots have, we will truly have no one to blame but ourselves.