BEEP, BOOP, BODY SLAM: Humanity Invents Robot Boxing, Because Why Not

What started as a $20 kids’ toy has now evolved into a live, AI-powered robot boxing league — because apparently humanity looked at Rock-Em Sock-Em Robots and said, “Yes, but let’s make it terrifying.”

Listen to “BEEP, BOOP, BODY SLAM: Humanity Invents Robot Boxing, Because Why Not” on Spreaker.

A Chinese robotics company called Unitree — which sounds like either a tree that only grows in one direction or a really boring university — has decided that what the world desperately needed was robots that could beat each other up for sport. I guess humans fighting each other wasn’t quite dystopian enough.

The company recently held what they’re calling “the world’s first-ever humanoid robot fighting competition,” which is basically Rock-Em Sock-Em Robots except the robots are life-sized, expensive, and probably capable of developing deep psychological trauma about being forced to punch their mechanical brethren.

Remember when Rock-Em Sock-Em Robots was just a harmless children’s toy where plastic robots bopped each other until one of their heads popped up? Well, congratulations, because we’ve scaled that up to full-sized humanoids with artificial intelligence, which seems like the kind of progression that should have required more committee meetings and possibly an ethics review.

The star of this mechanical mayhem is Unitree’s G1 robot, which stands 4 feet 3 inches tall and weighs 77 pounds. To put this in perspective, the G1 is roughly the size of a seventh-grader, but with better balance, more expensive parts, and presumably fewer complaints about homework.

The event was called the “World Robot Competition – Mecha Fighting Series,” which actually sounds like a name someone who grew up playing Rock-Em Sock-Em Robots would come up with – if they had a bunch of zeros in the budget and guaranteed live television coverage.

Four G1 robots duked it out in a boxing ring under the supervision of a human referee, whose job description now apparently includes “breaking up robot clinches” and “making sure the machines don’t achieve sentience mid-fight and turn on the audience.” This referee presumably went to school thinking he’d be separating human fighters, not mechanical beings that could theoretically calculate the exact force needed to punch through his ribcage.

The robots wore protective headgear and boxing gloves, which raises the important question: what exactly are we protecting robot heads from? Unlike the old Rock-Em Sock-Em Robots, these heads presumably don’t just pop up when hit—they probably file incident reports using built-in WiFi and Bluetooth.

Each match consisted of three two-minute rounds, during which the robots threw jabs, hooks, uppercuts, and leg kicks. One match even ended in a knockout when a robot couldn’t get up for eight seconds, which is either more realistic than the original toy version where robots just kept fighting until someone’s head flew off — or your thumbs got tired — or a sign that we’ve programmed our machines to be better at staying down than getting back up. Which, if you think about it, is the smarter way to go if you want to avoid permanent injury. Chalk one up for robot common sense.

The robots were controlled by human operators using remote control and voice commands, which means we’ve successfully created a sport where humans make robots fight while other humans watch and cheer. It’s like Rock-Em Sock-Em Robots, except instead of two kids mashing buttons, we have “tech influencers” shouting commands at artificial beings. Much like you’d do when irritated once again by ChatGPT not understanding how to spell stuff correctly.

The whole event was broadcast live by China Central Television, it’s version of “must-see TV” — watching metal beings pummel each other while their human puppet masters shout commands from ringside. At least with the original toy, you only had to listen to your little brother yelling “Take that, Blue Bomber!”

The winner was controlled by a “Chinese tech influencer” named Lu Xin, which means we now live in a world where tech influencers train robot fighters. Like if the kid who always won at Rock-Em Sock-Em Robots grew up to become a professional robot boxing coach, which actually sounds like a pretty reasonable career progression when you think about it.

According to the organizers, this is just the beginning. Another robot combat tournament is already scheduled for December, featuring “full-sized humanoid robots from different Chinese manufacturers.” So apparently, we’re not just doing this once for the novelty of it — we’re building an entire league. Pretty soon, we’ll probably have robot trading cards and kids arguing about whether the Red Rocker could take the Blue Bomber in a fair fight.

This follows other groundbreaking achievements in Chinese robotics, such as “the world’s first humanoid robot marathon,” because apparently someone looked at regular marathons and thought, “You know what this needs? More mechanical participants who don’t actually get tired, need water stations, or complain about their feet hurting.”

Chinese robotics companies are reportedly “going all-out to showcase their supremacy in the field of humanoid robots”… a sentence that would have sounded like science fiction just a few years ago and now sounds like Tuesday. It’s like the entire robotics industry decided that Rock-Em Sock-Em Robots was actually a blueprint for the future rather than just a fun way to keep kids occupied for twenty minutes.

The article notes that while the robot fighting wasn’t quite as exciting as the movie “Real Steel,” it was “definitely a preview of things to come in the near future.” This is either a promise or a threat, depending on your feelings about robot violence as entertainment and whether you think humanity peaked with the original Rock-Em Sock-Em Robots, or the Transformers movie franchise.

I have to admit, there’s something oddly satisfying about watching robots fight each other instead of humans. At least when a robot gets knocked down, you don’t have to worry about brain injuries or emotional trauma—just the occasional loose bolt, software glitch, or existential crisis about why their creators are making them recreate a 1960s children’s toy on live television.

But I can’t help wondering: what’s next? Robot wrestling? Robot cage fighting? Robot reality TV shows where mechanical contestants live in a house together and fake dramatic conversations and arguments so living humans will use their non-living computers and TVs to watch non-living robots pretend to be living beings?

Are we eventually going to have robot versions of every childhood game? Would robots be allowed to play the board game of LIFE, or would that violate the rules somehow? Would they have any concept of the frustration and anger a game of Monopoly brings? Would we need to program robots to know when to giggle before putting them on a polka-dot Twister mat?

Somehow, we have entered the era where our entertainment is provided by watching our multimillion-dollar artificial creations recreate games we used to play with plastic toys that cost us $19.99. And if that’s not a perfect metaphor for the current state of human civilization, I don’t know what is.

Hmm… I wonder if my original Rock-Em Sock-Em Robots just increased or decreased in value. I’m gonna have to look into that.