I have been a long time (24 years) MMA fan, and the UFC president Dana White has created a new Power Slap league and tv show. I just watched the first episode. I just wanted to express a few thoughts about it.

Going in, I was against the idea of people striking each other, undefended, leading to quicker brain injuries. Also it is not in anyway a martial art. After seeing the first episode, I still feel the same way. The whole idea of slap fighting seems to be to crave the blood lust of people who enjoy seeing others take high amounts of damage. During the episode, guys would take some big slaps, look like they are nearly KO'd, then try to recover within 30 seconds and continue. It seemed pretty brutal and barbaric.

The premise of the league really looks to be that Dana White is looking to exploit these poor, low intellect people who don't know any better. They give up brain damage, in exchange for what is likely really low pay. UFC is already known for under paying their fighters, so I can only imagine what these guys get.

During the episode, you really see guys who look quite poor and desperate for money. Alot of crooked and missing teeth. Most of the guys do not have athletic physiques, and are fairly out of shape, using baggy shirts to hide their bodies. They aren't the high level athletes that they are being sold as.

Some of the slaps and impact they had on the contestants was pretty brutal. That is a big selling point though. I just personally feel, it is just a freak show event, that doesn't have enough to it to have longevity. There is no sport to it. There is no "styles make fights" aspect. It is everyone doing the same thing. I don't think people will be intrigued by the battles and matchups, as much as they are there to watch someone, anyone, get really f*cked up and they don't care who it is.

Also, a big factor impacting who wins/loses is determined by the coin toss. Some guys can KO another guy with the first shot, so they can win without the other guy even getting a chance a striking. There isn't much skill to see there. If you wanted to see more combat skills, you'd be much better off watching Street Beefs fights on YouTube.

I'm not a fan of this "sport" and I don't should even be legal in Nevada. But it is like a trainwreck, where you want to see what eventually happens, so I will likely follow along from a distance and see where it goes.

The two head coaches for the season had a 27 round match previously! 27 undefended full wind up strikes in one session! How is that even legal?? I was stunned to hear that. Insane!

In this post show episode, the female coach discusses at 7:00, that she knew she had a talent for absorbing slaps to the face because of previous boyfriends she has had. I was stunned to hear that. Pretty sad stuff.
https://rumble.com/v266tkq-after-sla...-official.html

Here is a pic of another guy who competed in episode 1:

I shouldn't be but I'm dying laughing.

Mod Request: Please put the gruesome/gory/disgusting looking pics in spoilers.

I think I have figured out how to do posts with spoilers, so I'll be sure to use that for the more gruesome pics.

So after the debut episode and the post show, it has been an entertaining train wreck. The TV ratings came out from last night.
https://showbuzzdaily.com/articles/s...rk-finals.html

The show leading up to Power Slap was AEW wrestling, with 969,000 viewers which was the 3rd highest viewed show on the night. Power Slap had 295,000 for 45th highest. I don't know exactly what that means for long term success, but with all the social media push they did for this show, I'm sure that is a disappointing debut. Based on what I saw from the first episode, I don't expect the viewership to grow dramatically.

The After Show

I checked that out and wow what a train wreck. First the two coaches talk about how they got into the sport. The first guy Darius mentions he was competing to win some money and a free tattoo. The female coach mentions learning she had an ability to take slaps because of her ex boyfriends.

They start discussing strategy, and then talking about why someone would choose to wind up one, two or three times before slapping. It was ridiculous how they were trying to add some sort of technical discussion to something that was pretty meaningless or just personal preference.

Then they discussed the option of choosing to slap first or second if you win the coin toss. This was absolutely nuts to even think it makes sense to go second, when so many matches can end after the first strike. It would be like choosing to kick in NFL overtime, based on last year's NFL rules.

I'm really interested to see where this show and league goes. The idea of trying to sell PPV events sounds absolutely absurd. Right now, the Power Slap Twitter account has 7,000 followers, so that number will grow, but I'm not sure by how much. My best guess for the future is that TBS will air this first season, but not renew it for a second season.

Long term, I just don't think it will catch on. For people chasing KO's and injuries, it will provide that. But as far as a sport and competition, it doesn't provide that; it is too simplistic.

I just watched the first episode. Personally I think the sport is very exciting, much more so than I expected. I think the reality show is going to be a lot of fun. But in the end, I think this sport is just way too brutal. I say that as a combat sports fan, someone that likes PRIDE rules in MMA (wish they could knee to a grounded opponent in UFC), enjoys watching the early "no rules" UFC contests, and likes everything from Toughman competitions to bare knuckle boxing. This sport is way more brutal than any of those though.

I can understand why it's popular in places like Russia but don't think Western audiences will be able to stomach the long term damage these "fighters" are going to live the rest of their lives with.

Obviously there is going to be skill and technique in this sport, but I question why any of these guys in the US would be involved in this sport rather than another fight sport like MMA (given the increased risks and the lack of pay). Maybe if they are too lazy to make it in MMA or they have failed at other sports and continue to chase the elusive professional athlete career (going against their own best interest). Honestly you kinda have to be short a few brain cells to want to do this, which is why I think the reality show will be fun.

Knowing very little about this sport I'm going to go out on a limb and say that none of the people involved in this league are top level slap boxers. I have to imagine all those guys are somewhere like Eastern Europe where this sport has been pretty big for quite some time. I'm kinda speaking out of my ass on that, but just a guess. It's not like Dana is going to bring a bunch of Russians over and try to market them to a US audience.

When it comes to skill and technique of this, I think all of that would come in the form of the slap, and generating power, and using your whole body to get maximum force. But that is about it. That seems like the only thing that anyone competiting in this can control and work on.

I agree that these are lower quality athletes. Most guys had dad bod, couch potato type physiques. Other than the black guy at 170lbs, you didn't see physiques that look to be that of combat sports athletes or other athletes. If these guys could succeed at any other sport or any other life opportunity, they would do that over power slapping. The missing teeth and lack of grooming and health are just signs of lower income and lower intellect people, who can be, and are being exploited.

As far as getting the highest level guys in the world, right now it doesn't seem like that is the plan at the moment. Ya I'm sure those guys are in the biggest European organizations. I think Dana would be targeting those guys more down the road, if he is able to establish Power Slap in the US and have it grow. Similar to how the UFC became a much more international brand after it established itself in the mainstream. Right now the UFC has so many international competitors and champions, whereas the earlier days had much more US and Brazilian competitors.

I think right now, they are just trying to find as much US talent as they can, and try to make them marketable stars, before expanding the league to have the highest level guys from around the world.

The way Dana was hyping these coaches up, 1 is undefeated and the other has only lost to the other coach. In MMA, I suppose an undefeated fighter could be a guy just entering the UFC, and i'm guessing these guys haven't gone up against top guys.

I assumed they would say that belt was for a Slap World Championship but not upon further review not once was the word "World" mentioned, so props to Dana if he sticks to that because in the fight game they always like to say "World" Championship even if it's clearly not top level.

Skill can be debated in this just as it can be in other sports whether it be 100m, or ski jump, or swimming or whatever. Differences in skill can be measured in very small increments that could make all the difference. I really don't think skill or lack there of is that big of an issue with this league. The much more massive issue is the safety for the competitors. They can have a hundred doctors at each show but that won't change the fact that this is an extremely dangerous sport which will have life changing results (and I'm not talking about one's life changing because they won a stupid belt).

1. This was a way better OP and follow up than I expected, so kudos for that.

2. I am both amused and disgusted that just calling it a “Slap” apparently allows you to get away with something way more consistently harmful than any other combat sport with evidently much less regulation.

3. There is no way this succeeds just as a sport when you can clip all the action and stick it on TokTok and save watching 30 min of BS. That said - a reality show type deal would be worth one season.

4. I had never heard of this whatsoever until Dana slapped up his wife in public and part of their story was that they would delay the league for a bit because of it. Feels like a work.

Safety is 100% the most controversial issue with this. When they show videos of ambulance and doctors being on the scene, that is just to create an illusion of safety. Actions speak louder than words and Dana doesn't give a sh*t. If he did, this league wouldn't exist. They create an illusion of caring about UFC fighters as well, but those guys don't have a pension for when they are done. Best they can offer is a job staying on as a commentator, and those are very limited openings.

I think safety is really a "don't ask, don't tell" issue within the slap community. Also, fans and organizers seem to either not care or really downplay the damage. I joined up in a PowerSlap Reddit group to join in the discussion. A thread about safety concerns has the most upvotes there. It is quite delusional and in denial the supporters are about safety. I was also banned from the group because they didn't like the comments I had regarding safety. Here is the Reddit forum:
https://www.reddit.com/r/powerslap/

I found this video by YouTuber True Geordie discussing his views on Power Slap. He was accurate in that he used an analogy of these slap fighters "putting their brains through a car crash" when ever they take a slap. Also, he referred to the slap fighters as "victims" which I thought was quite accurate, based on how they are being damaged and exploited.
https://youtu.be/d368aSN8-F8

Going forward and heading into the second week on the show, what I'll be curious about is how much interest they can generate on social media between week 1 and week 2. Their Twitter followers were around 4,500 on Jan 9th, under 7,000 earlier today, and they are at 7,330 as of right now. Their Instagram has 182K followers.

Since the first episode has aired, I am wondering how many short viral clips they can put out on social media and generate interest for the second episode. So I will be curious about how many followers they can gain on social media throughout this week, and then how that affects the viewership for episode 2.

I am very curious to follow this along and see where things go. I'm curious as to what would be the turning point that lets Dana know that this is not going to work. I wonder if it would come as early as episode 2 or 3 ratings? Or would they decide by the end of the season? I don't have any background in tv or media or research, but it would be cool to know how those things work.

Meh, this has been going on in eastern Europe/Russia etc for years, it's interesting for two seconds until you see team MMA as a related Youtube link which is much more interesting

MMA is my favorite sport, but team MMA doesn't compare. One on one is much more pure and a true contest of skill. In team MMA, once a fighter is eliminated, it immediately becomes 5 on 4 and then the team with the advantage can systematically wipe out the other team.

The appetite for violence in Europe/Russia is alot different than North America and other parts of the world. Their love of violence is such that they watch stuff like arm wrestle boxing, car jiu jitsu and phone booth boxing. These are all ridiculous forms of combat compared to the more classic competitions of MMA, boxing and muy thai. I'll take the later any day of the week. Even Karate Combat looks fairly cool from the highlights I've seen.

I'd seen clips before and already thought this was a terribly dangerous sport but what shocked me watching this (aside from all the messed up faces) was the fact that they can actually get knocked to the ground, be concussed and still continue in the match. It's absolutely crazy, and the 2 coaches went like 27 rounds once?!? WTF. As we know from MMA, chins don't last forever. Anyone that competes in this sport for a length of time is pretty much guaranteeing themselves major complications later in life.

As much as there is already so much about this, the idea of a 27 round match is absolutely baffling and disturbing. How did they come up with that number? Eating one undefended slap is already a huge amount of force to absorb. If I had to guess what the longest match was in slap fight history before hearing this, no way I would have guessed 27. Who would decide that and who would allow that? Its great that the two guys survived it and are still alive, but that amount of strikes would literally kill most humans I believe. We already see how one good slap is enough for a KO.

With major sports like the NFL having increased regard for player safety (concussion protocol, concussion spotters, helmet to helmet his being removed), its hard to see how power slapping would just be accepted by a mainstream audience. The audience would for this would have to reverse their thoughts in empathizing for the athletes and their safety.

As disgusting as the organizers and the fans of the sport/league are in how little regard they have for the safety of the participants, there is something to be said about the slappers being adults who are responsible for themselves. The truth is, the people choosing to do this are the bottom feeders of society. Criminals, drug addicts, people who are a bit crazy and people who have already suffered brain trauma going in. It's true that they know what they are signing up for, but sometimes people do need to be saved from themselves.

Sounds awful and no doubt debilitating for the competitors. Can you imagine the wanna-be pro's at this, all drunk, training in their backyard? Misery.

Thank you for the write up. And I saw the Dana thing for the first time, thanks to the poster on that. Old man shooting too much T...combine that with booze and all that fame, easy to see how he snapped. And the Wife just smacks him first like that, good grief. I really don't think anything should come of that. I mean that is life in the fast line.

Hey guys, sorry that this post will be long, so I will just keep it to one topic related to Power Slap, which is a more thorough look into the first episode.

Deep dive into Episode 1

On the weekend, the UFC YouTube channel posted episode 1 of the Power Slap episode on their channel. The Power Slap Official YouTube has 92 subscribers, while the UFC channel has 14.8 million. I decided to do a re-watch of the episode, and just comment on a few things that stood out to me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHqGkJGk6gw&t=2142s


The episode starts out with a promo for the show, trying to make it comparable to the Ultimate Fighter show. It seems like the way they are marketing and presenting this to the public, is that its just another form of combat and that it will bring along all the action, drama and excitement that the Ultimate Fighter did.

1:20 – Dana says, “this is the opportunity of a lifetime”. An opportunity for what? Huge amounts of brain damage? It just sounds like a complete lie from a shady con artist. Its what someone in the porn industry would say when trying to recruit 19 year olds to get started; trying to disguise the fact their brains/bodies will be used and damaged for entertainment. All in exchange for small amounts of money that will pay for a few meals, with dreams of glory to keep them going.

2:10 – The show opens with Chris Kennedy taking the most brutal KO on the episode in terms of losing consciousness. Not only is he out cold, but you see his body stiffening up and twitching. The after show host said he was out cold for an extended amount of time. This is the show trying to give the people what they want, right off the bat. The term slap really down plays the force being delivered, as they are basically open handed palm strikes.

4:00 – Dana discovers slap fighting and seeing they are getting big views in Poland and Russia. This seems to be what fools Dana into thinking Power Slap will succeed in the US. Having views on YouTube or these short form social media platforms aren’t the same thing as creating a league for a sport, a TV show and live events.

4:14 – there is someone on the right side of the screen, receiving a slap, where I can’t quite tell if they are a man or a woman. I did some Google searching, and I don’t believe there were any inter gender matches in this Slap Fight Championship organization. I think it may have just been a feminine looking man competing.

11:45 – in the video introducing the coaches, there is a highlight showing another case of a guy getting KO’d and having his legs twitching. As an MMA fan, even these types of KO’s are rare there, whereas these contests seem to have those as more common outcomes.

12:30 – the two coaches of the show previously had an unlimited round championship match in the Slap Fight Championship, and it ended by decision after 27 rounds. To have unlimited rounds seems quite cruel and inhumane. Here is a video of that match that I found:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7GnAu9ymGI

12:55 – Here is Dana’s first mention of having a pay per view event following the eight episode season. That had me laughing out loud. I’m still laughing as I type this. Good luck with that Dana.

13:00 – Dana mentions “these guys will be ten times better than when they walked into the house”. Ten times better? More like their brains will be ten times more damaged.

14:00 – This match between Alex Asbury and Michael “Slap Jesus” Smith features two of the most down and out guys you will see. I don’t know either of their backgrounds, but I would not be surprised if it included jail time, crack addiction and stretches of homelessness.

14:45 – UFC Executive Hunter Campbell comments on Slap Jesus saying, “this guy looks certified out of his f*cking mind”. In this business and given what kind of talent they are looking for, that is a compliment. I will admit, that Slap Jesus is my favorite character through out this entire episode, as I found him the most entertaining.

17:15 – you see what appears to be chunks of skin from Alex’s lip, sitting on his shirt after his lip is lacerated. It is pretty gory.




22:25 – Competitor Anthony Green lets us know that he has 5 kids and works 2 full time jobs. That is just more information confirming the theory that the Power Slap is looking to exploit people who are desperate for money and opportunity.

28:00 – female coach Sheena Bathory appears on the screen. This lady has a judo background. She let the audience know during the after show, that she discovered her ability to take slap from some of the ex-boyfriends she has had. That was sad to hear, and just another case where we have a participant who has previously dealt with abuse/trauma in her life.

29:35 – Sheena delivers a KO slap to her opponent, who stumbles around on stage, after the safety staff fail to mobilize her and keep her in place. This clip has been used to promote this league and can be seen posted as short videos on YouTube and Instagram. Sheena then hugs her opponent and gets emotional, as she was competing against a friend. Shortly after you see the UFC executives react and an evil and sadistic laugh and smile from Dana; showing his true colors once again.

30:45 – Dana calls Sheena’s KO “one of the craziest knockouts I’ve ever seen”. Oh really Dana? You have seen every KO in the UFC for the past 30 years, many of which are quite epic, but a female slap fight KO, of a lady not defending herself, is one of the craziest you’ve ever seen? Once again, showing he is a lying scum bag.

31:30 – here we meet Welsey Drain. Yet another contestant missing front teeth. Here looks to be another poor guy they can exploit.

35:30 – Jon Kennedy does an interview after losing his match. I’m not sure after the loss this interview takes place, but he sounds quite injured and he sounds like he is slurring his words. He doesn’t look like he is that old of a guy. I would hate to see what he would sound like after a long run doing this.

41:10 – the coaches discuss how important winning the coin toss is, as the winner can end the match with one strike and not even receive a strike. I what real sport does a coin toss impact the likelihood of winning as much as this? It isn’t even close. The most important coin toss in sports I can think of is NFL playoff overtime, and even with that, they modified the rules this year to make it more fair. With the coin toss essentially deciding a high number of matches here, that is just more proof this isn’t a sport or a real competition.

It only took until the beginning of episode 2 that they started throwing around the word "world" with their mention of world rankings and world title. Many of these dudes are brand new to the sport. The guy that was selected first overall (Mitche Sipe) was just on the last season of the Ultimate Fighter trash talking Kamaru Usman's brother and subsequently not backing it up very well in the cage. Now he's the #1 pick in a completely different sport for a bunch of guys who will be slapping one another until one of them (or one per weight class) is declared a world champion lol.

Will there be sub-champions?

Probably need one, guys seem prone to dying in party fights etc.

Somewhere out there Dana just got an erection and doesn't know why

Just a follow up on some Power Slap metrics up to this point:

Ratings:
Episode 1 – 295K viewers
Episode 2 – 413K viewers
This is a 40% increase. It is a bit surprising since season premieres for TV shows tend to have more viewership.

Twitter Followers:
Jan 20: 8,200
Jan 25: 11,800
Jan 27: 12,300

Dana White 6.1M followers and UFC has 11M. The Power Slap account is growing in followers, but only has a small fraction of what Dana and UFC have, even though both those accounts are really pushing out the Power Slap content.

Instagram Followers:
Jan 20: 188K
Jan 25: 270K
Jan 27: 297K

Dana White has 7.8M followers, while the UFC account has 35.7M.

YouTube Subscribers:
Jan 20: unknown
Jan 25: 2,470
Jan 27: 2,750

UFC account has 14.8M.

Also, I have noticed, all social media posts are getting tons of negative response. There is a huge backlash from the MMA fans that this is being marketed to. Many of the posts promoting Power Slap are coming from the UFC accounts, since they have such big audience. Here is a YouTube example from the latest video posted on the UFC account, showing the ratio of likes to dislikes:

Episode 3 aired yesterday. Did anyone catch it? I'm in Canada so I'm able to view it on Rumble.

Since my last post, I have discovered that of all the social media platforms, they are doing the best on TikTok. It makes sense, because the highlights for the show mainly come down to performing a slap with takes less than 10 seconds to see. They have 1.6M followers on there, despite struggling on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and the TV ratings.

I was banned on the Power Slap reddit, because I brought up the issue of how dumb the "sport" is. I heard other people were banned quickly as well, as they don't seem to be too open minded about hearing different opinions there. I was banned on the Discord as well. However, I made my own sub-reddit if you guys want to check it out. I post more in depth stuff about the absurdity of Power Slap on there. I just wanted to be able to discuss it more in detail without being censored or banned. Come check it out if you want to chat more about this. Just search powerslappers.

The final KO of episode 3 was vicious but other than that it was a snooze fest.

Telling the back story to some of these slappers just showed how down and out these guys are and how desperate they are for money. Of the six bios, three of them had 4 or more kids.

Putting them in a house with unlimited booze is like asking for trouble. When you give alcohol to MMA fighters in a house, at least those guys are trained athletes who know how to scale back when needed. These guys are not athletes, and likely had substance issues in the past. They probably had issues with self control and poor decision making as well.