Since its inception in 2022, Power Slap has been a massive point of contention in the fighting community. The idea of two participants defenselessly trading free blows rubbed fans the wrong way, especially with the product closely tied to the UFC.
This was partly due to the steps the UFC made to distance itself from the human cockfighting narrative weaponized against it in the 2000s but also because of the danger of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, otherwise known as CTE, a degenerative brain disease linked to repeated blows to the head.
CTE is associated with dementia, and symptoms include Memory loss, confusion, difficulty thinking, deteriorated motor skills, and more.
CTE is prevalent in combat sports, especially boxing, where fighters can sustain hundreds of blows to the head without risk of being knocked out. Whatâs worse is that CTE canât be definitively diagnosed until after death by examining brain tissue under a microscope, so no amount of studies or scans can dismiss the potential of CTE in a live athlete.
Dana White: Slap Fighters Know What Theyâre Getting Into
With this in mind, fans have been keen to disparage Power Slap as âfree CTE,â given that the participants walk away with a concussion in almost every interaction. Power Slap owner Dana White had much to say when prompted about CTE in Power Slap by TIME Magazine on September 12:
White said that adults âhave the right to chooseâ what they want to do, which comes with âinherent risks,â and that he tries to âtake as much risk out of it as possibleâ for the competitors.
âI used to box when I was younger,â White remarked. "I went in and I did one of those brain studies. I have black spots all over my brain from what I did. I wouldnât take one back one punch. Not one. âŚ
â⌠And the doctors all talk about, âSomebody could dieââI got news for all the doctors. Weâre all gonna die. How do you want to live your life? What do you love and what are you passionate about?.â (h/t TIME)
But do slap fighters, and fighters in general, really know what theyâre getting into?
Are Fighters Taking Informed Risks?
Former UFC champ BJ Penn on CTE / Penn on Instagram
âItâs ok to choose dangerous things. But the choices should be informed.â
UFC GOAT Demetrious Johnson believes CTE can be ruled out by a clean MRI scan. Chandler Jones, brother of Jon Jones, believes that CTE is fake and that the âTraumaticâ element could mean anything from childhood abuse to sexual trauma. These are two examples in a sea of misinformation. Awareness of brain damage is one thing, but CTE is woefully misunderstood.
So, the question is, are fighters making informed decisions when participating in MMA and Power Slap? According to a 2020 study, less than 6% of combat sport coaches have proper concussion knowledge.
âMerely 5.7% of coaches properly recognized the level of traumatic brain injury a concussion represents, 68.8% were unfamiliar with any sideline assessment tools, and only 14.3% often seek out concussion knowledge.â
Magraken on X
Still, the UFC is making efforts to implement concussion protocols, beginning at the UFC PI in 2021.
âWe are slowly aggregating our own insights and our information here in the Performance Institute,â Said UFC VP of Performance Duncan French (h/t MMA News). âAnd we want to share that. We donât want the PI to become an ivory tower where the information is only retained for a discrete 600 roster of fighters.â
Although ongoing studies are deepening our understanding of concussions and CTE, the full impact of modern combat sports has yet to fully emerge.
âCTE is a disease of mileage. It takes time. It progresses. MMA fans are going to see a lot of cruel realities in the upcoming years.â
Until the condition is fully understood and education is widespread across all levels of the sport, we cannot assume that athletes are making fully informed decisions about the risks they take. While an athleteâs autonomy is ultimately their own, we cannot claim to grasp the extent of the dangers involved.
I donât care about their well-being.
I just canât watch a slap fight between men.
PowerSlap is awesome.
Dana White is the mixed power slap open weight champion
I keep this in mind despite being told things âlookâ ok.
I could say the same about most voters and most people who do anything at all.
Most fighters werenât smart enough to grasp the extent of the risk before they ever took a hit.
Seems such a dumb thing. Stand still and let me bash you. And donât move or cover up and stand tall to take another until one of you is essentially knocked out
Its just a dumb âsportâ.
It is. But so is fucking on camera. People do crazy shit for almighty dollar.
Yeah, if youâre dumb enough to sign up for that a little extra brain damage probably isnât going to hurt. Haha.
Dana showed his true colors promoting this trash.
Agreed a sport where you are not allowed to defend yourself from severe head trauma is ridiculous to me.
this is what bothers me. itâs not a âsportâ if you stand defenceless and let someone thwack you.
Is there any sport in the world when you can directly attack an opponent who isnât allowed to defend themselves?
Canât think of any off the top of my head.
People who compete in it are already retarded so it doesnât really matter
Yeah its dumb they probably could have figured out a way to have slap fighting and have people able to defend themselves and still have it be marketable.