The tradition of robot fighting is one that's steeped in grease and loose screws, dating back as far as the 20th century. From Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots, up through Syfy's Robot Combat League, robots have been battling it out to determine who is the supreme machine. Let's take a moment to look back at the evolution of robot brutality.
Robotic beginnings 1495 AD: Renaissance man Leonardo da Vinci first sketched out plans for a mechanical humanoid around 1495. Known as "Leonardo's robot," a set of pulleys and cables would have allowed the mechanical man to sit up, wave its arms and move its jaw. 
Unfortunately, Leonardo's vision never became a reality and robot boxing would fall by the wayside for another 500 years. Way to drop the ball, Leonardo.
Televox, the first remote controlled robot is created in 1926: Westinghouse Electric Corporation saw a serious lack of robots in the early part of the 20th century and developed a series of simple remote controlled robots in the crude image of a black man. Bet you had no idea that racial robot profiling used to be a thing, did you? Robots have come a long way since their beginnings, and these days any and every type of robot is welcomed into the cage to get the bolts beat out of them in hand-to-hand robo combat.
Westinghouse's more advance robot, Elektro made appearances at the 1939 and 1940 World's Fairs and paved the way for other robots like George Devol's Ultimate robot in 1954. And what did this "ultimate" robot do, you ask? It stacked hot pieces of metal from a die casting machine in Trenton, New Jersey. They had a pretty lose definition of the word "ultimate" back in those days.
Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots are born 1964: Marx Toy Company releases the iconic robot boxing set by Marvin Glass and Associates, and the world is forever changed with children taking it to the robot ring to settle their beef. Kids in the 1960s had no idea at the time, but their plastic toys would later evolve into life-sized robot gladiators. Don't expect that kind of awesome evolution to happen with Pokémon.
Robots finally start beating the sh*t out of each other 1990s-present: For most of the 20th century, robots were wasted on assembly lines and Japanese trade shows. It wasn't until the 1990s that we finally realized the robots true purpose - battle. The BattleBot movement was one of the most successful robot fighting tournaments and spawned similar competitions all over the world. The three minute long matches involved small remote controlled robots armed with everything from buzzsaws, to sledgehammers and battle-axes going at each other in a cage match setting. Finally, MIT grads had a practical use for their engineering skills.
Robot Boxing Comes to television with Syfy's Robot Combat League 2013: Rock'em Sock'em Robots got the ball rolling back in the 1960s, Battlebots showed that robots were capable of brutal destruction, and now, we're finally getting the robot boxing we deserve! Robot Combat League truly is a real version of that Hugh Jackman movie Real Steel , only way better. Twelve teams of robo-jockeys and robo-techs are paired up to create 8-foot-tall metal gladiators that will battle to the death in the ring. Boxing and robot badassery? It's a win-win if there ever was one.
One of the most fascinating aspects of the show is that the robots movments will be guided by a fighter wearing a state of the art exo-suit that translates their movements to the robot. The suits were created by robot expert, Mark Setrakian and are top of the line when it comes to robotic combat.
Robot Combat League premieres on Syfy Tuesday, February 26 at 10 PM EST/PST. It's sure to be a milestone in the sport of robotic fighting.
