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New Dawn MY puts human pilots behind humanoid robots for seven live bouts at Pavilion Damansara Heights
What happens when elite sporting instincts meet humanoid robotics? Malaysia found out over the weekend.
Shadow Combat League (SCL) brought its New Dawn MY event to Pavilion Arena at Pavilion Damansara Heights on Oct 3, introducing a new form of live competition where human pilots control full-sized humanoid robots in real time.
Described as Southeast Asia’s first live teleoperated humanoid combat league, the Malaysia-born platform combines combat sport, robotics, technology and live entertainment. Seven bouts are scheduled across four preliminary fights and three championship contests, with live entertainment running throughout the evening.
Unlike autonomous robot competitions, SCL keeps humans firmly in control. Combat Pilots use real-time motion capture to translate their movement, reactions, timing and strategy into the robots inside the arena.
Safee Sali meets Koo Kien Keat
The main event brings together two familiar names from Malaysian sport, former national footballer Safee Sali and former national badminton player Koo Kien Keat.
The pair come from very different sporting backgrounds but both have spent years competing under pressure at elite levels. At SCL, their experience is transferred into an entirely different setting as they controlled humanoid robots against each other.
The supporting card features Aiman Abu Bakar against Adli Goldenboy, while Malaysian entertainer and content creator Alip Blastoff faced professional Muay Thai fighter Isaac Quinn Lee.
Quinn Lee returns to the SCL arena following his previous appearance at SCL: First Light.
The preliminary card saw Daniella Sya take on Theeban, Alexis Grace face Daniel Fong and twins Michelle Teo Jia Yin and Mabelle Teo go head-to-head. Eugene Chong also faced Yuan Teng.
Three titles up for grabs
New Dawn MY introduced three SCL championship categories, each representing a different group of competitors.
Icon features personalities from entertainment and popular culture, while Gladiator focuses on fighters, athletes and martial artists. Netrunner opens the competition to technologists, gamers, digital creators, enthusiasts and professionals.
Each category crowns a champion at New Dawn MY, with titleholders expected to return for future editions to defend their belts.
The structure gives SCL the foundations of an ongoing league, with champions, rivalries and new challengers developing beyond one night of competition.
Where sport meets robotics
SCL was founded in Malaysia with the ambition of creating a new category of live sport and entertainment.
The league is developed within the LineArk ecosystem, a robotics technology platform focused on embodied intelligence, including teleoperation, motion intelligence, robotics data, software and AI.
SCL’s founders bring backgrounds in combat sports, martial arts and entertainment to the format. They include LineArk founder and CEO Dr Ian Tan Wei Lun, co-founder and COO Ooi Fei Hoong, and MMA fighter Peter Davis, who serves as co-founder and chief content officer.
For Dr Tan, the league also points to possibilities beyond entertainment.
He said the wider vision is to explore how robots can bridge digital and physical environments while allowing humans to remain at the centre. He also sees teleoperated humanoid robotics as potentially opening competitive opportunities for people who may not otherwise be able to participate in traditional combat sports, including individuals with physical disabilities.
The long-term ambition is to develop SCL into a global combat entertainment league built around humanoid robotics, with New Dawn MY representing its next major step.
More than a live spectacle
While the fights are designed for an audience, SCL also functions as a real-world deployment environment for LineArk’s robotics technology.
The humanoid machines are placed in situations that require movement, balance, impact, recovery and rapid responses. These conditions allow the technology to be demonstrated and refined outside controlled laboratory environments.
The approach reflects LineArk’s wider focus on developing embodied intelligence through real-world applications rather than limiting robotics development to research settings.
From Malaysia to beyond
New Dawn MY also forms part of SCL’s wider plans to take its format beyond Malaysia.
The league is being developed as a global humanoid robot combat property, with plans to expand its roster, championship structure and competitive format across Apac and other international markets.
LineArk is also establishing a regional presence in Bahrain with support from the Bahrain Economic Development Board, as part of its broader international expansion. The move is intended to support future partnerships, research, technology deployment and commercial applications across the Gulf and wider Middle East.
For SCL, the ambition is straightforward. Bring humanoid robotics out of controlled environments and into an arena where technology becomes something audiences can watch, understand and engage with.
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