REK put bladed humanoid robots in its San Francisco cage for its first Deathmatch

Robot Entertainment Kombat (REK), the San Francisco humanoid fight promoter founded in 2025 by Cix Liv, held an event called Deathmatch on the evening of Friday 9 October 2026. Its novelty was weapons: the robots, all piloted remotely by humans, fought with arm-mounted blades and claws. The show took place in a former mattress showroom on Van Ness Avenue that REK now leases as a permanent arena. The San Francisco Standard counted about 100 spectators, many of whom had paid 69 dollars.

According to the event preview published by Humanoids Daily, the card had three bouts: a weapon fight between G1 robots, a T800 bout fought with punches, and a main event between two machines named Rektile and T-REK. The Standard describes Rektile as 6 ft 2 in tall and 180 lb with steel claws, and T-REK as 190 lb with blades. Both are Chinese-made robots modified by REK for combat.

The blades measured roughly 10 to 20 inches and were cut from AR500 hardened steel, designed by REK's lead hardware engineer Nick Dobrikov, a former BattleBots engineer. The Standard reports that photographers were moved back from the cage, that a camera lens was pierced and that cage panels were left gouged and cracked. REK had not published official results when this article was written.

The event followed the cease-and-desist letter REK received from the California State Athletic Commission over a human-versus-robot fight in September. That order covers only contests involving humans, and Liv told the Standard his goal is to hold regular bouts at the venue.