If you log onto MMA Twitter even intermittently, you’ve almost certainly picked up on the general attitude towards Dana White’s Power Slap project. Debuting in just a few weeks with a reality show that airs after a professional wrestling telecast, the show is not too subtly trying to recreate the magic of “The Ultimate Fighter,” with many of the same behind-the-scenes players. The participants take turns slapping each other, attempting to knock each other out or win via decision. The advance advertising has focused on big personalities talking trash at each other like Chris Leben and Josh Koscheck on the first season of TUF.
The reaction from the MMA community to this has been, in short, exceedingly negative. The notion of a slap fight league has been simultaneously ridiculed as a stupid idea that can’t possibly succeed and condemned as a deplorable exercise in generating brain damage with little skill involved. Few seem to have any interest in watching, and fewer think it has much of a chance of thriving.
My natural instinct is to agree with the common sentiment. Slap fighting doesn’t seem to involve much in the way of skill. There is of course some technique in delivering any blow, but defense is literally against the rules. It seems more oriented towards people who are able to sustain strong blows to the head without going unconscious, which doesn’t tend to sustain itself over time and produces terrible long-term consequences. That’s less sport than spectacle, and the early commercials seem to back up that that is the chosen approach. It just doesn’t feel like it has anywhere near the skill involved in learning wrestling, jiu-jitsu and striking and being able to blend techniques against an opponent looking to counter what you attempt.
