In a tucked-away San Francisco warehouse, four humanoid robots hang out — quite literally, from standalone frames — as they wait for their flesh-and-blood overlords to train them to kill.

As reporter and writer Ashlee Vance writes on his Substack Core Memory, this entirely robotic fight club is known as REK, and is operated by virtual reality entrepreneur and fighting robot enthusiast Cix Liv.

With one big robot battle win under his belt from San Francisco's Ultimate Fighting Bots (UFB) league, Liv has already begun taking cues from mixed martial arts, pro wrestling, anime, and science fiction to create something that is part sport and part theater.

Using his decade-long background in VR, Liv envisions REK as a place where human "pilots" donning headsets and arm-worn "combat controllers

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