The US and Japan Had a Giant Robot Fight and You Can Watch It

We're gonna need a new weight class for this one

October 13, 2017 9:00 am

Thanks to the logic-defying ineptitude of the U.S. Men’s Soccer Team, there is a 0.0% chance that the United States will square off against Japan at the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia.

But since Trinidad and Tobago is too busy with important things to compete in giant-robot dueling, we get to face Japan in that instead.

Already filmed but streaming on Twitch on October 17th, a bout between America’s MegaBots, Inc. and Japan’s Suidobashi Heavy Industries will finally be available for viewing. Rooted in a challenge MegaBots issued to Suidobashi in the summer of 2015, the duel featured a 16-foot-tall American bot weighing 12 tons and a slightly smaller Japanese droid weighing 12 tons but measuring only 13 feet tall as combatants.

Here’s how our boy looks in action:

Consisting of “multiple rounds of fighting,” the duel took place at an abandoned steel mill in Japan and was spaced out over several days to allow the engineers to make repairs. Using weapons picked  “to not cut through metal, but instead to damage it,” the duel was fought under a system requiring the winner to knock over or disable their opponent, according to The Verge.

Get your popcorn ready for 7 p.m. PT on the 17th, when the fight will officially premiere.

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