Shadow Combat League held its first Malaysian humanoid robot fight night in Kuala Lumpur

Shadow Combat League (SCL), a Malaysian league built around full-size humanoid robots steered live by human pilots, held its first Malaysian event, New Dawn MY, on 3 October 2026 at Pavilion Arena in Pavilion Damansara Heights, Kuala Lumpur. The card had seven bouts: four preliminary fights and three championship contests.

The robots are not autonomous. Each pilot drives a machine through motion capture, and the machine reproduces what the pilot does, live. The league was developed inside the LineArk robotics group, whose founder and chief executive, Dr Ian Tan Wei Lun, leads SCL. Bernama reported before the event that a bout could last up to 15 minutes or stop earlier once a robot failed to rise again.

The pilots were public personalities, spread across three title categories: ICON for entertainers, GLADIATOR for fighters and martial artists, and NETRUNNER for technologists, gamers and creators. In the main event, former national badminton player Koo Kien Keat beat former national footballer Safee Sali. Aiman Abu Bakar took the GLADIATOR title against Adli Goldenboy. Reports differ on which belt was attached to the other two title bouts, so KLVSH does not state it here.

According to the organiser, champions are expected to defend their belts at later editions, and the next SCL fight night is planned for the first quarter of 2027. LineArk also says it is setting up a regional presence in Bahrain, which it sees as a potential hub for the Gulf.