California is trying to shut down robot vs. human cage matches

is a senior reporter covering technology, gaming, and more. He joined The Verge in 2019 after nearly two years at Techmeme.

The California State Athletic Commission sent a cease-and-desist letter to a startup that hosted a match between a human and a robot last month, as reported by The New York Times.

The fight, which took place on September 18th, pitted a human, Frankie LaPenna, against a humanoid robot owned by a tech startup, Rek, that was being piloted by a human using what the NYT described as a “remote virtual-reality system.” Rek says it is the “the humanoid robot fighting league” on its website, and the robot appears to be one from EngineAI but with a Terminator-like head swapped on top.

You can watch a replay of the fight on YouTube:

The CEO of Rek, Cix Liv, posted the letter to X on September 30th, which called the fight “unsanctioned” and demanded that Liv and REK stop “holding, promoting or advertising any boxing or mixed martial arts contest match, or exhibition, involving any human” in California without the approval of the California State Athletic Commission. “We made it boys,” Liv said.

Rek’s next planned match, which takes place on Friday, will feature two robots with weapons fighting each other.

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