Syfy has greenlit and shot the first season of a new show where eight-foot-tall state-of-the-art humanoid robots will rock em and sock em in a boxing cage until one is defeated.
The future-shock new series is called Robot Combat League and the project has been kept under wraps until today. The action resembles a real-life version of last years hit movie Real Steel, with large menacing robots pounding away at each other in a satisfying shower of sparks and gushing hydraulic fluid. And just like in the film, the bots will be controlled by shadow-boxing operators whose movements are translated into metal-on-metal punches. WWE wrestler, author and Dancing With the Stars veteran Chris Jericho will host.
Though Real Steal is the most obvious recent reference, Robot Combat League has cable network forebears like BBCs Robot Wars (1998) and Comedy Centrals Battle Bots (2000). But older shows featured small, squat robots rolling across the ground and attacking each other, like evil Roombas. It has always been our desire and its really come around perennially to update and do Battle Bots for the new century, says Syfy president Mark Stern. Can we do Real Steel? Are we at a place where you can do real bipedal robots? Every time we tried to to do it, [the project] was stymied by the technology.
Syfy wont reveal how much the 1,000-pound robots cost (a lot, Stern says) and there is one obvious design differential that keeps the bots from Reel Steel-like autonomy a stabilizing bar that prevents the top-heavy machines from toppling over during fighting and help controls their movement across the ring. Stern hopes that version 2.0″ of Robot Combat League can ditch the bar.
Still, from what weve seen from a presentation reel on the show, Robot Combat League (which debuts Feb. 26) delivers whats promised robots pounding on each other. Up until we actually saw them in the ring fighting, we didnt think it would work, Stern says. Setrakian created a robotics system that can mimic a humans actions and movements. Weve had robots decapitated, weve had robots cut in half. It was truly spectacular.
Robot Combat League will have 12 teams. Each consists of a fighter (dubbed a robo-jockey) and a robotics engineer (a robo-tech). The fighters and techs are from various backgrounds, such as a race car driver, an Olympic athlete, a National Guard helicopter pilot. One of the robo-jocks, for example, is MMA fighter Amanda Lucas (Star Wars visionary George Lucas daughter). Each team is paired with its own unique robot, all designed by Setrakian, that will have unique strengths and vulnerabilities. And, of course, the robots will have a colorful names, such as Steampunk and Sgt. Smash. (If theres a second season, I hope Lucas gets to control a giant gold robot named C-3POW).
The project might eventually have some competition. Discovery Channel earlier this year announced its developing a next-generation robot combat show called Robogeddon, produced by heavy hitters James Cameron and Mark Burnett. Robot Combat League is ready to go, however, having just wrapped production on its first season last week.
http://insidetv.ew.com/2012/11/20/robot-combat-league/
I hope this takes off! 
