{"slug": "california-is-trying-to-shut-down-robot-vs-human-cage-matches", "title": "California is trying to shut down robot vs. human cage matches", "summary": "The California State Athletic Commission sent a cease-and-desist letter to Rek, a startup that bills itself as \"the humanoid robot fighting league,\" after it hosted a September 18th cage match between human fighter Frankie LaPenna and a humanoid robot piloted by a human via a remote virtual-reality system, as reported by The New York Times. The robot appeared to be an EngineAI unit fitted with a Terminator-like head, and a replay of the fight is available on YouTube.", "body_md": "# California is trying to shut down robot vs. human cage matches\n\nBy Jay PetersSource: \n\n[The Verge AI](https://www.theverge.com)\nThe 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*](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/08/technology/human-robot-cage-fights-california-rek.html).\n\nThe 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](https://rek.com/fights), and the robot appears to be one from [EngineAI](https://en.engineai.com.cn/) but with a *Terminator*-like head swapped on top. \n\nYou can watch a replay of the fight [on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rg2sB6ELtk):\n\nThe CEO of Rek, …\n\nGet AI news in your inbox\n\nDaily digest of what matters in AI.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/california-is-trying-to-shut-down-robot-vs-human-cage-matches", "canonical_source": "https://www.machinebrief.com/news/california-is-trying-to-shut-down-robot-vs-human-cage-matche-7w95", "published_at": "2026-10-08 20:06:56+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-10-08 20:47:30.257838+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["robotics", "ai-policy"], "entities": ["California State Athletic Commission", "Rek", "Frankie LaPenna", "EngineAI", "The New York Times", "YouTube"], "also_reported_by": [], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/california-is-trying-to-shut-down-robot-vs-human-cage-matches", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/california-is-trying-to-shut-down-robot-vs-human-cage-matches.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/california-is-trying-to-shut-down-robot-vs-human-cage-matches.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/california-is-trying-to-shut-down-robot-vs-human-cage-matches.jsonld"}}