The brawls pit two life-sized puppets that look like robots against each other. The puppets hang in a frame and they are controlled by combatants pushing and pulling on poles attached to the robots' hands and feet as they fight.
American-Kiwi Sabrina Harms, who co-ordinated the recent Te Puke Business Excellence Awards, introduces the sport and provides the voice-over for the segment.
''It's been taking up a bit of time,'' says John. ''Organising the fighting was a massive undertaking and then I had to get it together in a show and in the right format - it was
pretty full on.''
John unleashed his idea of Stupid Robot Fighting on the world in 2017, and says he had no inkling about where it would go.
''It was interesting because it's extremely quirky and so you wonder.''
He says being picked up by such a massive broadcaster as ESPN twice affirms his commitment to his ideas.
''I'll regularly wake up and think 'is this a thing and should I really be carrying on with this because it's taking up a lot of time?', so the affirmation from people that literally are high- end sports broadcasters saying yes, we can use this - that's the affirmation that, if I didn't get it, there probably wouldn't be much point in carrying on.''
