Watch These SumoBots Wrestle Each Other to the Death in Ring

Jessica Miley

Ok, we’ll admit it. We had been missing out on the Japanese craze of Robot-sumo, or pepe-sumo for years. But thanks to the painstaking work of YouTuber Robert McGregor, we now have an awesome showreel of the sport, and boy, are these SumoBots ferocious. McGregor spliced together this brilliant videos from hundreds of hours of footage from hundreds of fights.

Robot-sumo as you probably guess is when two robots attempt to push each other out of a circle or Sumo ring (called a Dohyo).

The tough little robots used in this competition are called SumoBots. Unlike the real sport that is full of pomp and ceremony, these tiny robots only care about winning.

Each SumoBot uses sensors to stop it from leaving the competition area and is equipped with a ‘weapon’ to push their opponent out. Usually, this is a 45-degree angled ‘blade’ that scoops and pushes. But check out the whole video for other cool inventions like giant wings and robotic arms.

Although most battles are over in a matter of seconds, occasionally there is a perfect match of robot force and the SumoBots get stuck in a kind of head-to-head lock down.  

The competition is divided up into weight classes much like other types of combat and the robots fight in progressively smaller arenas.