Dana White is not just the CEO of $12 billion worth UFC. The bossman never puts all the eggs in one basket and owns lucrative businesses like Power Slap, the new venture of boxing with Turki Alalsheikh and is also involved in a bull fighting league. Among these, Power Slap has a notorious reputation of being both loved and hated by the MMA world.
Thirteen months after its launch, the sport is seeing rapid growth on social media and even secured a deal to host an event in Saudi Arabia. The $750 million promotion did get backlash at first from the MMA community who said things like, “It’s disgusting to see. As time goes on less and fewer people will watch it,” and “I love MMA and slap fighting, but power slap is disgusting.” (via Reddit). But what does Team Khabib’s coach have to say about all this?
Javier Mendez talked about Power Slap while speaking about fighting reality shows. Team Khabib’s coach was not appreciative of other fight reality shows like The Russian version of The Ultimate Fighter. According to him these shows are too violent and not real combat sports.
The host of the Javier & Mo Show pointed out how true fans of MMA do not appreciate things like Power Slap and other kinds of violence devoid of martial arts. Meanwhile, Mendez praised $750 million worth of Power Slap owned by Dana White. Mendez said, “If they love it they love it but that does not mean I should you know the people the fans I mean the business is the business it’s about making money. So, if people are watching that means the money is coming through. So that means guess what? It’s gonna stay you know it’s approved by states. I don’t like knocking it just because I don’t like watching it I mean you know people like it.”
UFC CEO DANA WHITE with post event media during the UFC 304 event at Co-op Etihad Campus, SportCity, Manchester, England on the 27 July 2024. Copyright: xAndyxRowlandx PMI-6350-0002
He also defended Power Slap by saying that it is entertainment and the fighters do not slap with their palm. They attack with their fingers joined together which is less violent. He also gave the example, “Not everybody likes the movie Jackass, right? But it made so much money because why? They had guys going through these crazy stupid things and people were going ‘Oh what are they doing.’” He mentioned how people like some reckless things from time to time. The conversation almost turned into an argument as Mendez said, “If it was such a negative thing why would it be on television?”
Interestingly, his argument does have a point especially ow that Power Slap has surpassed NBA and SuperBowl on social media!
Power Slap soars to the top leaving the NBA behind
Remember when people thought UFC was not going to be a big name back in the 2000s? What did Dana White do? Prove them wrong. He repeated the same with Power Slap as well. What did White say about Power Slap then? “I said it – go back. Some of you were there and heard me in the early days,” White said after Power Slap 8. “I said, ‘This will be the biggest sport in the world. This will be bigger than the UFC. This will be bigger than the UFC.”
The UFC head honcho proved this and has receipts to show for it! Power Slap recently surpassed NBA and Super Bowl on social media viewership. Dana White reshared the story from Freak MMA’s page and wrote, “BOM @powerslap. And it still keeps growing consistently.” Freak MMA displayed the PowerSlap social media overview stats. With 22 million followers on social media, Power Slap has 474 million views on the most-viewed YouTube shorts of all time, among many other accolades. Meanwhile, the NBA has 28 million YouTube views.
So clearly, Mendez was correct in his logic—people do like to see entertaining things even in the combat relam. What do you think about Power Slap? Tell us in the comments below.
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