"Surrogates"-esque sci-fi short story

When the Bruce Willis movie "Surrogates" came out, I was sure it was based on this short story. It's about a detective living in a world where everyone interacts only through android representations of themselves. The detective ends up being forced to go out into the real world in person, and gets forced into a boxing match or something.

And when he's in the fight with the robot, he cheats by throwing sand at it, which gets into its joints and disables it, right? Was it maybe a story by Robert Sheckley?

I'm nearly positive it's a short story in New Stories from The Twilight Zone by Rod Serling.

2> The throwing sand sounds familiar.

2,3> Do either of you know the name of the specific stories you're thinking of?

#4: "Do either of you know the name of the specific stories you're thinking of?"

I don't. I've been trying to remember more about it, but getting nowhere so far.

I'm looking for my book. Might still be in a box.

That's a whimsical Keith Laumer short story, The body builders. The main character is a professional boxer (through his "servos" -- the surrogates), and an argument at a fancy restaurant gets him into a flesh-vs-metal boxing match that he resolves by throwing handfuls of sand into the machine.

According to Philsp.com it was published in these anthologies/collections (press ctrl+f):

• It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad Galaxy, Berkley 1968


• The Best of Keith Laumer, Pocket 1976


• The Infinite Arena, ed. Terry Carr, Thomas Nelson 1977

Haha! I own The Infinite Arena. I don't think I've read the collection yet, though, so I'm not sure where I originally read the short story 10+ years ago.

I own Infinite Arena too. Sorry, I was looking for the wrong book. I knew I'd read that story.

MerryMary, I actually got Infinite Arena from you as a SantaThing gift!

Well, we were both pretty sure we knew this story, weren't we? How funny.

It's not a short story, but Kiln People by David Brin has a lot in common with the Bruce Willis film. Could that be what you're thinking of?

No, that's one that kept coming up when I looked for it a few months back, and I know it's not the one.

I should really read The Body Builders and get back as to whether that's the right story. I'll see if I can tear myself away from A Dance With Dragons...

The Body Builders is definitely the one I was thinking of in #2.

To anyone who's still looking...

The Body Builders is available online for free as part of the collection The lighter side, courtesy of the Baen Free Library.

Laura Mixon also has a series relating to waldos like this: Proxies is one of them ....

I forgot to update here - The Body Builders is definitely the one I was looking for. The stories in The Infinite Arena were all familiar, so I must've read it when I was younger. Thanks once more for the gift, MerryMary!