There is a longstanding intellectual dispute, fought out in the Letters to the Editor column of Occulture Magazine, about why the robotic pokemon Iron Hands was ever built.
The so-called "athletic thesis" holds that Iron Hands was a sort of proof of concept for robotics, demonstrating that robots could not only be the intellectual peers of humans, but could now move well enough to defeat champion pokemon in sumo. Although the resemblance of these pokemon to the sumo champion Hariyama is undeniable, sumo is an unlikely choice of a demonstration sport. The sport places an immense premium on size and strength, which could always be enhanced by adding metal to one's frame; would it not be far more impressive to defeat a team of Throh in basketball?
Readers dissatisfied with this explanation converged on the rival "medical thesis", which noted Hariyama's longstanding use in traditional Hoenn medicine as a cure for all sorts of mental maladies: a fabled slap which could put one's brain back in order. It is entirely understandable that doctors and medical researchers, seeking to place this procedure on a scientific footing, would use a robot to automate the process. The issue with this explanation, however, is with the pokemon's titular hands – not only do Iron Hands' hands possess only a modest resemblance to Hariyama's, they also have the ability to detach entirely from the pokemon! If the purpose was simply to create a slapping machine, why build the rest of the robot at all?
Then again, detachable hands are also not legal in extant sumo rulebooks, or indeed in the rules of any other known sport. And so the debate goes on; if another, more credible explanation exists for this pokemon's origins, it is known only to the far future mind of this pokemon's builder.