Slap fighting: The next big thing, or unsporting stupidity?
- UFC boss Dana White says Power Slap league is a ‘home run’, but safety concerns remain
- ‘It’s one of the stupidest things you can do,’ says Chris Nowinski, CEO of Concussion Legacy Foundation
The competitors stand rigidly upright with their hands behind their backs, waiting to absorb a brutal slap to the face.
When the open-handed blow is delivered, there’s a sharp report and the reaction can be dramatic. Some fighters barely move, while others stumble backward or fall to the floor. Some are knocked out.
UFC president Dana White is selling slap fighting as the next big thing in combat sports, putting his money and the resources of one of the world’s foremost mixed martial arts organisations behind the Power Slap League. The Nevada Athletic Commission has sanctioned the league for competitions in Las Vegas.
“It’s a home run,” said White, who is among several UFC officials involved in the league.
Some slap-fighting beatdowns have gone viral, including a video from eastern Europe showing a man who continues to compete even as half of his face swells to seemingly twice its size.
Such exposure has led to questions about the safety of slap fighting, particularly the risk of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, a degenerative brain disease believed to be caused by repeated blows to the head.
