For competitors
Get in the ring
Humanoid fighting is the rare sport where the equipment is the obstacle — except that it mostly isn't. Three of the four active leagues will assign you a robot. Here is every route in, what it costs, and what will actually stop you.
You do not need to buy a robot to compete.
UFB assigns every Season 2 team a Unitree G1. URKL gives every entrant an identical EngineAI T800 free of charge and lets the top sixteen keep theirs. China Media Group runs an entire entry track for individual operators with no machine at all, competing by remote, voice or motion-sensing control. The hardware is the part that has been solved; the access is not.
Routes in that supply the robot
CMG2026 Robot Mecha Fighting CompetitionIndividual operator — no robot
Register through the 央视科教 (CCTV Science & Education) WeChat official account using the keyword 报名. Individual operators compete by remote, voice or motion-sensing control, using machines they do not own.
WeChat: 央视科教, keyword 报名- Robot supplied
- No robot of your own is required for this route — that is the point of it.
- Deadline
- Global recruitment opened 11 June 2026. No closing date published.
- Barriers
- There is no English-language portal. Registration runs through a Chinese social platform and a Chinese-language keyword, which in practice means this route is open to anyone who can read Chinese and closed to almost everyone who cannot.
Ultimate BotsPilot
Create an account. Signing up IS the registration — there is no separate application. Pilots drive the humanoids in the arena; the league is explicitly recruiting gamers, athletes and performers rather than engineers.
- Robot supplied
- Every team is assigned a Unitree G1 by the league. No robot purchase is required.
- Prize
- $100,000 prize pool across Season 2.
- Deadline
- None published.
- Barriers
- Season 2 runs 1 October 2026 to 31 March 2027 and events are in San Francisco, so this is realistically for people who can get to the Bay Area — though UFB also supports browser-based remote piloting, which is the only route in this sport that does not require being in the room.
Ultimate BotsGhost (engineering)
Same signup, different role. A Ghost works the Physical AI stack behind the robot rather than driving it.
- Robot supplied
- League-assigned Unitree G1.
- Prize
- Shares the $100,000 Season 2 pool.
- Deadline
- None published.
Ultimate Robot Knock-out LegendCompeting team
Email the league. Around 200 teams from 10 countries entered the first season, with the top 32 decided by online qualifiers — so the entry route does not require being in China, though the fighting does.
URKL@engineai.com.cn- Robot supplied
- Every team receives an identical EngineAI T800 free of charge. The top 16 keep theirs; the top 8 also receive limited-edition robots and priority recruitment.
- Prize
- A 10 kg solid gold belt worth roughly RMB 10 million (about US$1.44 million). The top four also take cash.
- Deadline
- Not published for the current season.
- Barriers
- Events are in China, with the grand final in Dubai. Algorithm changes must be approved in advance and dangerous modifications are banned.
Routes in that need your own machine
CMG2026 Robot Mecha Fighting CompetitionRobot company or developer group
The other of the two announced routes: bring your own humanoid. Same WeChat registration.
WeChat: 央视科教, keyword 报名- Robot supplied
- You supply the machine. The headline platform is the Unitree H2.
- Deadline
- No closing date published.
- Barriers
- No English-language portal.
CyberHeroTeam — builders, coders, drivers
Hero Esports handles team entry through partnerships rather than an open signup, so this is an approach rather than a registration.
partnership@heroesports.com- Robot supplied
- No
- Deadline
- None published.
- Barriers
- No public entry portal exists. Six of the eight announced circuit cities have not been named, so there is no way to know where you would be competing.
What a pilot actually does
You drive it
Almost every bout in this sport is remote-piloted. At UFB that means a standard game controller, and the league also supports piloting from a browser — the only route in this sport that does not require being in the room.
Iron Fist King’s robots moved on motion capture taken from professional kickboxers, trained in simulation and then driven live by an operator. The skill being tested is a mix of reaction, timing and knowing what the machine can survive.
Or you build the stack
UFB calls this role a Ghost: the Physical AI stack behind the robot rather than the hands on the controller. URKL is built entirely around it — identical hardware for every team, so the only thing you can compete on is the algorithm.
EngineAI open-sourced its robot code before Mecha King so teams could customise and train their own fighters.
Between rounds, you repair
At CyberHero’s Riyadh event, each side’s mechanics and engineers worked on damaged machines in a pit area between rounds, using telemetry to diagnose and fix them under time pressure.
It is the most sports-shaped thing about the whole format: a pit lane, and an engineering race run in public.
What it costs if you do want to own one
List prices where they are published. A fighting machine is a consumable — the US vendor for the combat-edition G1 ships it with a repair subsidy instead of a warranty, which tells you most of what you need to know.
| Machine | Maker | Price | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| G1 | Unitree Robotics | $13,500 | |
| T1 | Booster Robotics | $33,949 | |
| G1 EDU Combat Edition | Unitree Robotics | $63,900 | |
| H1-2 | Unitree Robotics | $100,000 | |
| GD01Piloted mech | Unitree Robotics | $574,000 |
What will actually stop you
Language
Two of the four routes run entirely in Chinese. CMG’s individual-operator track — the one that needs no robot at all, and the most open door in the sport — registers through a WeChat official account using a Chinese keyword. There is no English portal.
Geography
URKL fights in China and finishes in Dubai. UFB fights in San Francisco. CyberHero has named one of its eight cities. Only UFB’s browser-based piloting offers any way to compete without travelling.
No open door at CyberHero
Hero Esports handles team entry through partnerships rather than a signup form, so approaching them is the only route, and six of the eight announced circuit cities are unnamed — you cannot know where you would be competing.
Import and authorization
The FCC added foreign-produced advanced robotic devices to its Covered List in July 2026. Existing authorizations were not revoked and used units are unaffected, but future models are exposed — and EngineAI’s T800 reportedly had no FCC equipment authorization on record as of August 2026.
Entry addresses, prize pools and deadlines change between seasons. Every route on this page carries the confidence we have in it and, where one was captured, a link to the source. If you find something here out of date, that is worth more to us than almost anything else on the site.