On September 18, influencer Frankie LaPenna fought a six-foot humanoid robot in a San Francisco cage in an event billed as the world's first human versus robot fight, and the remote-controlled machine, which was running as an ad for a VR game, knocked him to the floor, per TMZ.
The company that ran the fight is a robotics company. That is the whole story. Robot Entertainment Kombat stages robot versus robot brawls, a real life version of Real Steel with a joystick, and when an influencer with millions of followers asked to be in the cage, they said yes. The "first-ever" is the press release. The cage is the set. The human is the prop. The fight was a commercial for their VR game, and Frankie was the ad.
He is a professional stuntman, which means the risk is his job, not a bug. "I am a stunt-man, this is what I do for a living," he told the Daily Mail, one breath away from "I nearly soiled my pants." His coach told him "I'm scared for you" before the bell. He landed a few punches and knocked the machine back, which proves the point, because the operator has a thumb and could have let him win. The robot kicks at 850 pounds of force, and the only damage report is a hand injury from "punching metal." The hand is not the setback. It is the engagement.
REK, for its part, announced that Frankie actually won the fight, is now flooded with emails from "try-hard men" who want their turn, and the CEO says "we'll have to do it again." Glowing eyes, a halo of light over the machine's head, a wall of phones. That is not a fight, that is a product launch with a séance. What was for sale was the footage of the settlement, and Vice has the clip.
YOUR TURN: A "first-ever human versus robot fight" with the loser chosen in advance. Science, spectacle, or a preorder for the next one?
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