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I don't know of an earlier reference.

Thirty rounds of fighting is tough work. Even for machines. Thirty rounds of fighting, at five minutes per round, is one hundred and fifty minutes, two and a half hours, of solid, shattering labor. A machine overheats the way a man does under constant stress. It’s joints expand, its lubricant thins, things begin to stick, friction wears parts. While a fight-machine’s body works against time, its opponent pounds it, jars it, jolts it. Wires loosen. Gears slip. Tubes shatter. The machine slows, becomes gawky. Its timing is a split second off. Its flexibility, its speed, are worn down. (Fight Machine from 'Jingle in the Jungle' by Aldo Giunta) When its pattern-analysis system becomes damaged, it cannot decipher the feints, the systems and combinations of its opponents’ strategy. An eye is shattered, and the Trainer replaces it, since he carries a spare pair. The same one is smashed again, and he cannot replace it, because the Commission only allows a single replacement during a fight. Its “skin” is split and the colored oil flows, the lifeblood of the machine. The Trainer is allowed one vulcanizing skin repair job per bout. If it happens again, the fighter must go on, fighting against the time when the loss of oil will endanger his operating efficiency. Sometimes the machines strike each other with such deadly impact, they dent the inner frame-work of the body, putting strains on a section of wiring or electrical tubing. Then the damaged machine must fight defensively to protect its weakened section. The offender will work out elaborate pimchpattems to trick the defender into somehow thinking he understands the aim of each pattern of punches and where the final concentration will be. And suddenly, with uncanny craftiness, the offender switches its attack to an unexpected area. This is the function of the pattern-analysis system in each fighter. To map, plan, digest the opponent’s habits of fighting, then compute them, set up a given system of punches itself which will clutter the opponent’s memory banks, and then radically change the mode of attack and system of fighting. The process is mathematically complex. It is the process of the human brain operating at high speed.

Technovelgy from Jingle in the Jungle, by Aldo Giunta. Published by IF in 1957 Additional resources -

An owner-coach has this sort of experience at ringside:

Charlie Jingle gripped the edge of the ring hard, digging his hands into the canvas, straining and twisting in tortured anguish with every slashing blow that struck the Tanker. He watched the two fighters weave, jerk, dart — bodies and arms flashing blurs, smashing blows one to the other in sequences that were too complex for the eye to follow in detail...

Charlie shot the stool into the ring and went through the ropes. Tanker dropped like a chunk of hot lead onto the stool.

“How do you feel, boy? How do you feel?” prompted Charlie, pumping the cooling-fluid into Tanker’s insides.

“Hot,” rasped the Tanker. “Hot as hell.”

“Want me to throw in the towel?” asked Charlie, working fast, working the pump up and down quickly.

“No, goddamit..."

By the end of the twenty-seventh. Tanker came back to his corner lame. The Champ had dented his forehead.

“How is it?” asked Charlie Jingle.

“Fine,” said Tanker thickly. “It’s fine.” There was a slur to his voice, which tipped off what was beginning to happen. Tanker’s co-ordination system had been damaged...

Compare to the Rolem wrestling robot sparring partner from This Immortal, by Roger Zelazny, published by Ace Science Fiction in 1966.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Jingle in the Jungle
  More Ideas and Technology by Aldo Giunta
  Tech news articles related to Jingle in the Jungle
  Tech news articles related to works by Aldo Giunta

Fight Machine (Boxing Robot)-related news articles:
  - Robot Martial Arts Videos

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