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Humanoid Boxing Robot KO's Opponent - It's A Knockout!
Humanoid robot boxers are now having spirited matches in China. Take a look at this match below.
🇨🇳 Robot gets KO'd in the world's first humanoid ROBOT FIGHTING tournament in China pic.twitter.com/Abkux5FZnj
— Dott. Orikron 🇵🇹 (@orikron) May 25, 2025
As far as I can tell, these two robots are not autonomous; they are being guided by the two guys outside the ring with controllers.
Even in Chinese, you can understand the excited announcer shouting "KO"!
Science fiction writers have of course foreseen these developments. In his 1957 story Jingle in the Jungle, Aldo Giunta describes fighting machines (robot boxers:
Thirty rounds of fighting is tough work. Even for machines. Thirty rounds of fighting, at five minutes per round, is one hundred and fifty minutes, two and a half hours, of solid, shattering labor. A machine overheats the way a man does under constant stress. Its joints expand, its lubricant thins, things begin to stick, friction wears parts. While a fight-machine’s body works against time, its opponent pounds it, jars it, jolts it. Wires loosen. Gears slip. Tubes shatter. The machine slows, becomes gawky. Its timing is a split second off. Its flexibility, its speed, are worn down.
(Fight Machine from 'Jingle in the Jungle' by Aldo Giunta)When its pattern-analysis system becomes damaged, it cannot decipher the feints, the systems and combinations of its opponents’ strategy. An eye is shattered, and the Trainer replaces it, since he carries a spare pair. The same one is smashed again, and he cannot replace it, because the Commission only allows a single replacement during a fight. Its “skin” is split and the colored oil flows, the lifeblood of the machine. The Trainer is allowed one vulcanizing skin repair job per bout. If it happens again, the fighter must go on, fighting against the time when the loss of oil will endanger his operating efficiency.
(Read more about fighting machines (robot boxers)
Note that Giunta includes robot referees. There were even programmed knockout sequences:
The Champion moved forward, wound up. He started his famous knockout sequence of punches, landing the first and second carefully, playing to his audience so that they could see what was happening and appreciate from the beginning what was about to happen.
An earlier 1956 story by Richard Matheson describes robot boxers. Steel was published in Fantasy and Science Fiction, but in the actual fight described in the story, a human coach substitutes for a broken-down robotic fighter. Maxo the robot has mechanical difficulties:
Pole reached inside Maxo and activated the leg cable centers. Maxo began shifting around. He lifted his left leg and shook off the base wheel automatically. Then he was standing lightly on his black-shoed feet, feeling at the floor like a cured cripple testing for stance.Pole reached forward and jabbed in the FULL button, then jumped back as Maxo's eye beams centered on him and the robot moved forward, broad shoulders rocking slowly, arms up defensively.
"Christ," Pole muttered, "they'll hear 'im squeakin' in the back row."
(Read more about the boxing robot)
Thanks to SFFaudio for the video and a reference for this story.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 5/15/2025)
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