A robot fight in San Francisco caused damage beyond the cage itself after organizers warned photographers to move back, and one blade-armed humanoid pierced a camera lens.
Held in REK's permanent Van Ness Avenue venue, the Rektile-versus-T-REK match filled the room with smoke and noise while underscoring the fast pace of humanoid robot development.
Here's what to know
The warning stemmed from the setup itself: inside an octagonal cage, two robots taller than 6 feet faced off with steel weapons, Rektile with claws and T-REK with Spartan-style blades.
Organizers feared those blades could pass through the viewing holes in the cage panels, and The San Francisco Standard reported that one camera lens was pierced and the panels ended up cracked and gouged.
Robot Entertainment Kombat, known as REK, put on the fight. Founded in 2025 by VR entrepreneur Cix Liv, the company has distinguished itself from many Bay Area robot fight clubs by leasing a permanent arena inside a former mattress showroom.
These fighters are Chinese-made humanoids altered for combat, but they still don't operate independently. Human pilots control them remotely; as Liv said, "We're still a way out from autonomous fighting," and he added that the show remains as much about control systems as robot hardware.
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REK lead hardware engineer Nick Dobrikov, a 24-year-old former BattleBots engineer, deliberately added weapons, including hardened AR500 steel blades ranging from about 10 to 20 inches long. "We just want more damage," Dobrikov said, explaining why REK added weapons to the fights.
More background
More than 100 people came to the venue, many of them paying $69 for admission. The audience included tech workers, couples, cyberpunk-styled ravers, and a parent carrying a baby.
Beyond the spectacle, the match highlighted abilities useful for practical humanoid robots in everyday environments, including speed, balance, durability, and recovering quickly after a fall. Daniel Junco, 20, a retail worker visiting from Palm Springs, said, "It's so unnatural how fast the robots got up, and it just blew my mind."
For some people in the crowd, the fight showed artificial intelligence taking physical form instead of staying limited to software. Yusuf Albasian, 29, a lawyer from the East Bay, said, "AI is mainly in software … but now it's in a tangible, material form right in front of us [as a] humanoid."
REK had already attracted regulatory attention in September. In September, it staged a human-versus-robot cage match that drew a cease-and-desist from the California Athletic State Commission over alleged unlicensed combat, though Liv argued, "What we're doing is not technically illegal."
What's being done?
Liv said he wants the Van Ness arena to become a regular home for bouts, adding that he is "very close" to making that happen.
Before the blade fight, photographers were pushed farther from the cage, and the robots still rely on remote human operators rather than autonomy, keeping people directly involved as the hardware becomes more extreme.
Liv has also narrowed the business plan to focus on the entertainment venue rather than running a retail store and workshop at the same time. Early investor Hubert Thieblot, a general partner at Founders, Inc., said the larger opportunity is figuring out how to build more of this technology domestically: "We need to know how to build them."
"It seems futuristic, but it's kind of the MVP of what the world could look like," Albasian said.
Where can I learn more?
REK's cage fights are just one flashy example of the broader push into humanoid robots.
• Tesla drew backlash after a humanoid robot demo that critics said showed worrying limits.
• At a Figure AI event, a college intern beat humanoid robots in a sorting challenge.
• A Chinese automaker began using humanoid robots as interns on its factory floor.
• Hyundai has pushed Atlas toward manufacturing, showing it doesn't have to move like a person.
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