California moves to shut down human vs. robot cage fights hosted by startup Rek
The Verge AI · rss · 2026-10-09
- California's State Athletic Commission sent a cease-and-desist letter to startup Rek over its human vs. robot fight, per The Verge citing The New York Times.
- The September 18 match pitted human Frankie LaPenna against a humanoid robot piloted remotely via a VR system; the bot appears to be an EngineAI unit with a Terminator-style head swap. Rek calls itself "the humanoid robot fighting league."
- A replay is on YouTube; the story is both absurd comedy and an early look at embodied-robot spectacle marketing.
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