An MMA Thanksgiving: 2023 All-Turkey Team

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Dana White and Power Slap

“A sorry cash grab with little to no substance.” A line from an anonymous review of the Power Slap mobile game holds true for the “sport” as a whole. In a style of combat not invented in the United States and instead cooked up overseas at the Sarychev Power Expo and in organizations like PunchDown (later SlapFight Championship), the madness drifted into the view of Ultimate Fighting Championship brass. Even the death of Artur Walczak did not deter its spread like unwanted groundcover, slowly creeping its way into quasi-mainstream attention.

In a year or two, the UFC, and most notably, its frontman, Dana White, who famously slapped his wife on New Year’s Eve, has crowed the successes of Power Slap with wholly unverifiable claims. The CEO of the UFC recently remarked this new business was absurdly worth $450 million, while consistently defiant that the social media numbers of this abhorration crush that of every major sports league combined. This flies in the face of its brief deal with TBS that ended after a season due in part to paltry ratings on the network. Where else would a fringe league like this move but to a hard-right streaming platform called Rumble, with a fraction of that prior reachable audience.

The UFC continues to lead the charge stateside to push its side business, all while its leader shouts down any opposition as he pulls figures out of thin air. Is it because one special slap went viral with over 350 million views on TikTok? Was it monetized? Remember, so did a baby getting its face squished, and this unnamed infant is not more popular than Jesus now, to quote John Lennon.

The number 350 million also cropped up when White informed media at a Dana White’s Contender Series presser that the mobile game had that many downloads while being the No. 1 game on the market. It took seconds to disprove that entirely, as the Google Play Store on Android listed that Power Slap only had tens of thousands of downloads at the time. The Apple store did not make up for the remaining hundreds of millions. That Power Slap game is currently No. 13 on Android in the top free sports games category, below billiards, a fantasy sports app and darts. It has been hammered with reviews complaining about its intrusive advertising.

The company has trudged on to infiltrate the UFC’s infrastructure. Amid UFC broadcasts, play-by-play gold standard Jon Anik has to read out promos for Power Slap. It is obvious why, piggybacking this feeble organization on the shoulders of the MMA industry leader to attract the morbid curiosity of stragglers. A total follower base of 28.9k on the platform formerly known as Twitter, 543k on YouTube, 1.9 million on Instagram, 3.8 million on TikTok, 3.2k on Reddit and 171 on Russia’s VK all pale in comparison to the UFC’s foothold alone. It needs to feed off the world MMA leader like a parasite to gain any notoriety. This is why, for instance, the UFC puts up all of the slap videos and conferences on its own YouTube channel, which has thirtyfold the subscriber base.

All of this bluster comes as athletes can hope for a possible payday of $2,000 to show and $2,000 to win an appearance on the reality show. according to UFC vet Eric Spicely. White quickly compared the pay to some boxers fighting on undercards rather than disputing the numbers or promising things would improve. He later noted that the top performer at Power Slap 1 would end the night with a $45,000 check after prevailing—life-changing money for the White-described “bible belt” slappers. They enter these contracts willingly, but the numbers do not add up on that end, either.

Across five numbered events—not counting the 46 matches that took place throughout the reality show, which would likely feature a large number of the 2k/2k paydays—there were 45 slap fights. If assuming the absolute maximum, based on White’s figure, that every fighter was paid $22,500 to show and $22,500 to win, the total payday of those five events would slightly eclipse $3 million. With an unknown revenue that could range anywhere from $45 million to around $225 million, based on business calculation models, this could put fighter pay as a percentage of revenue ranging from 1.3% to a high of around 7%, or substantially worse than the reported 18% for UFC fighters. Even unimaginably, if the athletes on the reality show and those 46 other bouts made that same money, the 13-14% share of revenue for fighter pay on the most Power Slap-favored estimates would still be dreadful. All that assumes the $450 million valuation is even remotely substantial, thanks in part to “an unbelievable amount of sponsors” like household names easypost, Kudo Snacks, Jeremy’s Razors, Happy Dad and 10XWorld, along with the UFC-involved Monster Energy and Howler Head brands.

Exploitative and dangerous, Power Slap persists as White claims that a small handful of unspecified states have now sanctioned slap combat. In response to a number of failed post-event drug tests for more substances than the Soviet team at the 1980 Olympics, it was the same rhetoric of things being darker before the dawn as the sport gets “cleaned up.” For a medium discovered by international audiences five years ago, when it was replete with bodybuilders and unnaturally enhanced gentlemen, it is not simply a matter of growing pains. Instead, it is an ugly money-making farce that takes advantage of those unfortunate few willing to slap one another in the face for pocket change.

At this rate, if the UFC sees a modicum of financial gain, Booty Slap will be yet another spinoff. The whole Power Slap organization is one huge turkey farm, with the chief gobbler the worst offender.

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