I love the UFC.

I love the strategy, the rivalries, the ridiculous press conferences, the surprise knockouts, the technical submissions and the occasional fighter who celebrates a victory by climbing the cage like an unsupervised raccoon. Mixed martial arts is violent, but underneath that violence is an enormous amount of skill, discipline and preparation.

Then there is Power Slap.

Power Slap looked at combat sports and apparently decided the biggest problem was all that inconvenient combat.

No footwork. No takedowns. No combinations. No submissions. No blocking. No slipping a punch. No moving your head. No protecting yourself at all, really.

You stand still, put your hands behind your back and allow another human being to swing an open hand into your head as hard as possible.

At last, a sport for people who watched Rocky and thought, “This would be much better if Rocky weren’t allowed to move.”

This Is Not the UFC

Power Slap may be promoted by Dana White and decorated with some of the same lights, cameras and promotional fireworks as the UFC, but putting the UFC logo’s distant cousin near something does not magically make it mixed martial arts.

UFC fighters train for years in wrestling, boxing, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, kickboxing, conditioning, distance management and defense. Even when a fighter gets knocked out, the goal was generally to avoid getting knocked out. Defense is not an optional accessory. It is one of the central skills of the sport.

In Power Slap, avoiding the blow is called a foul.

According to the official rules, the defender must stand with their feet planted, face the striker and hold a stick or towel behind their back with both hands. Once the referee approves the position, the defender cannot alter it. Mouthguards and cotton inner-ear protection are required, but headgear is not permitted. In other words, your teeth and ears receive a little assistance while your brain is apparently told to remain positive.

That is the fundamental difference.

In boxing or MMA, a competitor can block, move, counterattack, clinch or otherwise attempt to reduce the impact. In arm wrestling, both competitors are actively resisting each other. Yes, someone can suffer an arm injury, but the objective is to overpower an opponent who is simultaneously fighting back.

Power Slap removes that resistance. The opponent carefully measures the target, winds up and delivers the cleanest possible strike to the side of a completely exposed head.

That is not an unfortunate side effect of the competition.

That is the competition.

The Athletic Skill of Standing There

I am not saying Power Slap competitors are weak. Quite the opposite. It takes a special kind of courage to stand in front of another large adult and voluntarily let them reboot your operating system with an open palm.

There is timing involved. There is technique in delivering the slap. There is physical conditioning. There is pain tolerance. Some competitors absolutely train and take it seriously.

But let us not pretend the required skill set is comparable to becoming a professional mixed martial artist.

Power Slap feels less like a showcase for highly developed combat ability and more like an open audition for anyone possessing sufficient balls, ovary swag or general disregard for tomorrow morning.

The primary defensive technique is apparently having a neck built like a fire hydrant and hoping your ancestors installed decent shock absorbers.

Supporters may argue that the simplicity is part of the attraction. Anyone can understand it instantly. One person slaps. The other person attempts to remain on this dimensional plane. Then they switch.

There are no complicated rules to learn, no judges explaining cage control and no need to understand why someone lying on the floor with another person wrapped around them is actually winning.

It is simple, dramatic and perfect for short social-media clips.

Unfortunately, “easy to understand on TikTok” is not normally the gold standard by which we determine whether something should become a major professional sport.

Let Us Discuss the Brain in the Room

Every combat sport carries risk. Anyone pretending otherwise is trying to sell something, probably tickets.

Boxers suffer concussions. MMA fighters suffer concussions. Football players suffer concussions. Even sports that do not involve intentional strikes to the head can produce serious injuries.

The difference is that most sports at least contain defensive strategies and rules intended to reduce unnecessary damage. Power Slap builds the entire event around producing a powerful, undefended head impact.

A 2024 study published in JAMA Surgery reviewed videos of 78 slap fights involving 56 contestants. Researchers analyzed 333 slaps and found visible signs associated with concussion after 29.1 percent of the individual slaps. Forty-four of the 56 contestants, or 78.6 percent, displayed at least one visible concussive sign during the footage. The researchers were careful to note that video analysis is not the same as a clinical diagnosis, but those numbers should still cause any reasonable person to pause. Preferably before someone slaps them.

The visible signs included motor coordination problems, slow recovery, vacant expressions, loss of responsiveness and impact seizures.

Those are not wrestling characters.

Those are neurological warning signs.

The American Association of Neurological Surgeons and the Congress of Neurological Surgeons have gone considerably further than merely raising an eyebrow. In a 2025 position statement, the organizations denounced adult and pediatric participation in slap fighting and urged governing authorities to reconsider promoting it because of the possibility of permanent and devastating brain injury.

When brain surgeons collectively look at your sport and say, “Please stop doing that,” it may be time to reconsider the business model.

What About CTE?

CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, is frequently mentioned whenever repeated head trauma is discussed. It should be discussed carefully because it is not something a doctor can currently diagnose conclusively in a living person.

According to the CDC, research associates CTE with long-term exposure to repeated head impacts. That does not mean one slap, one concussion or an occasional head impact automatically causes CTE. Scientists are still studying why some people with repeated exposure develop the disease while others apparently do not. At present, CTE can only be confirmed by examining the brain after death.

That uncertainty is not reassuring.

It means we cannot confidently tell a Power Slap competitor, “Congratulations, your brain passed the CTE test.”

There is no such living-person test.

We are essentially watching people accumulate intentional head impacts while science continues trying to determine exactly how much repeated trauma is required before the long-term bill arrives.

That seems less like sports medicine and more like a subscription service nobody remembers signing up for.

Medical Testing Is Good, but Independence Matters

To be fair, Power Slap has repeatedly emphasized regulation, drug testing and medical testing. Nevada also regulates slap fighting as unarmed combat, and its general professional contestant requirements include a physical examination, infectious-disease blood testing, an ophthalmological exam and brain MRI and MRA requirements. That is considerably better than holding slap contests behind a convenience store while somebody’s cousin records it vertically.

But basic licensing and pre-event clearance do not answer the biggest question.

What happens to these participants over time?

For a sport built around repeated undefended blows to the head, I would want genuinely independent medical oversight. Not doctors selected by the promoter. Not examinations designed mainly to determine whether someone can compete this weekend. Independent neurologists should have authority to stop a contest, impose medical suspensions and prevent a competitor from returning until they have recovered.

There should be baseline neurological and neurocognitive testing before a participant ever competes. There should be immediate post-match examinations, mandatory follow-ups days and weeks later, documented concussion histories and long-term monitoring.

The anonymized results should be available for legitimate independent research.

Most importantly, medical personnel should answer to a commission or independent health body, not to the company whose revenue depends on the slapping continuing.

Because “the promoter says everyone was medically cleared” is not the same as transparent, long-term medical oversight.

A person can be healthy enough to participate today while still accumulating damage that may matter years from now. A five-year MRI schedule is not a magical neurological warranty, and a normal scan does not mean someone did not suffer a concussion.

Are There Any Positives?

There are a few arguments in Power Slap’s favor.

It is regulated in places where it operates legally. It has weight classes, referees, medical personnel and defined fouls. Regulation is better than the underground versions where competitors may be badly mismatched and safety precautions consist of someone yelling, “He looks fine.”

The sport is also accessible to viewers. The rules are easy to follow. Events are short. The personalities can be entertaining, and competitors who would never have entered boxing or MMA may receive money, exposure and opportunities they otherwise would not have had.

Adults also have the right to make risky choices. We allow people to box, race motorcycles, climb mountains and attempt home electrical repairs after watching half of a YouTube tutorial.

Consent matters.

But informed consent requires more than signing a waiver with the phrase “possible headache” buried somewhere near the bottom.

Competitors deserve a clear explanation of the known risks, the unknown risks and the fact that the long-term neurological consequences may not become obvious until much later.

The Bottom Line

Power Slap is certainly a spectacle.

The problem is that a spectacle and a sport are not automatically the same thing.

The UFC showcases trained athletes using multiple disciplines while actively attempting to attack, defend, adapt and win. Power Slap showcases someone standing motionless while another person takes a carefully measured swing at their exposed head.

That does not make the participants cowards. Anyone willing to do it is unquestionably tough.

It just makes me question whether toughness should be measured by how willingly someone allows their brain to bounce around inside their skull for our entertainment.

I will continue watching the UFC. I will continue respecting boxing, wrestling, kickboxing, jiu-jitsu and even professional arm wrestling, where two people battle for control and everyone’s brain generally remains outside the official scoring criteria.

Power Slap, however, feels like humanity discovered everything medical science has taught us about repeated head trauma and responded:

“Interesting. Now put it in slow motion.”

No thanks.

Some ideas deserve applause.

This one has already received enough open hands.