If you’re still wading into the culture war about whether trans athletes should be allowed to compete, you’re living in the past. You gotta keep up; we’re onto humans fighting robots now.
Meet Robot Entertainment Kombat, an upstart sports startup that pits human vs. machine… as long as the California State Athletic Commission doesn’t find out. Founded by Cix Liv, the company has apparently been hosting mixed martial arts-style fights between robots—you know, because the least interesting part of sports is the human element and the best part is the violence.
What happened here is the robot hit a motor limit in its head. By software design this will “e stop” the robot.
This is just a design choice, the head on these robots is entirely cosmetic and does nothing yet (not even vision).
In other words, double tab the chest. pic.twitter.com/LtHbGsswSp
— CIX 🦾 (@cixliv) August 23, 2026
According to Lix’s LinkedIn, he’s been hosting “humanoid” fights, which pit two bots remotely controlled by real people against each other, since September of last year. But last month, his REK took it a step further by placing a person in the ring against a robot. That bot was still controlled remotely rather than acting autonomously, so the fight was really closer to human vs. human with a body that doesn’t experience pain—which, to whatever extent it’s compelling, it’s in a Jackass way rather than a sports way.
Our robots aura farming humans now. Emoted on him at the end. pic.twitter.com/u5qW1sCQmu
— CIX 🦾 (@cixliv) September 22, 2026
The battle was hosted September 18 in San Francisco, according to the New York Times, and took place in a warehouse with about 100 people in attendance, rabid to see either blood or oil, whatever got spilled first. The human, as you might expect, was bested, getting sent to the mat in each match, and they eventually left the event with a hand injury.
The fight apparently got the attention of the California State Athletic Commission—which regulates all boxing, kickboxing, and mixed martial arts events in the state—which sent a cease-and-desist to REK, per the Times, informing the startup that the fights weren’t sanctioned and they would need to get approval before hosting any fight involving a human. Penalty for failure to comply would result in a misdemeanor, which tells you about how much bite the commission has been given.
This video is dedicated to the AI safety kids pic.twitter.com/mgtOVBFQ29
— CIX 🦾 (@cixliv) September 20, 2026
Liv, who seemingly has been desperately trying to make some sort of futuristic sport stick for the majority of his career, dismissed the letter and told the Times, “The law clearly states that a ‘match’ is between two persons,” which is a pretty weasely dodge for a tough guy, but hey, you gotta know when to play defense and when to attack.
Per his LinkedIn, Liv previously tried to launch REK as an augmented reality fighting league set in the metaverse where you could “watch people hadouken” each other. He had a number of other virtual reality and mixed reality efforts before landing on robot fighting, and he seems pretty all-in on it, telling the Times, “We’re going to democratize MMA so we can essentially experience the blood sport without anyone getting hurt.”
Our robot fights were too dangerous, so we put swords on them. pic.twitter.com/ogbU4JD1Iy
— CIX 🦾 (@cixliv) October 7, 2026
Liv and his company REK seem set to continue hosting these fights, albeit without the metal-on-flesh element. They have a “deathmatch” planned for later this month that will pit two robots remotely controlled by humans against each other. The gimmick this time around, though, is that the bots will be equipped with weapons, which REK is claiming will be a first-of-its-kind fight. Apparently someone didn’t grow up with BattleBots.
