Dana White, greatest identified for constructing the UFC right into a fight sports activities juggernaut, is now all-in on Energy Slap, his newest enterprise that has followers and critics alike scratching their heads, and typically laughing out loud.
Followers Troll Dana White’s Energy Slap
A current social media push for “Muniz vs KO Chris,” promoted as “LIVE and FREE NEXT on YouTube powered by VeChain,” featured a video of a Energy Slap athlete awkwardly warming up, arms flailing, which solely added to the game’s fame for unintentional comedy.
The response from followers, as seen within the quote threads beneath White’s posts, has been something however delicate. “This may be the dumbest shit I’ve ever seen,” one person wrote. One other quipped, “Think about seeing this and pondering whoa his approach is sick.” The tone is constant: slap preventing is being handled as a punchline, each actually and figuratively.
“Slap preventing is for individuals who watched UFC and mentioned, ‘Yeah however what if we took out the ability, cardio, and dignity?’” reads one other remark. “Must be the dumbest voluntary competitors on earth,” says a 3rd.
Even the promotional overlap with boxing star Canelo Alvarez drew bemused reactions: “Selling Canelo and this with equal enthusiasm is so fucking humorous,” Jack Slack famous. “We bought two of the best boxers of this era, however we even have meth addicts with no actual coaching, no matter you want”
Energy Slap, which started airing in early 2023, has struggled to win over conventional sports activities audiences. Its preliminary run on TBS drew a mean of about 250,000 viewers, far behind its lead-in wrestling present, AEW Dynamite, which usually pulled in near 800,000. The TBS partnership ended after the primary season, with Energy Slap shifting to streaming platforms like Rumble and, extra just lately, YouTube. Regardless of the low TV scores, Energy Slap has discovered a shocking foothold on social media, the place knockout clips routinely rack up thousands and thousands of views. For instance, a single knockout from the debut episode was considered greater than 180 million instances on TikTok.
The league’s official social media accounts boast thousands and thousands of followers, and Dana White has repeatedly touted its digital attain, even when his claims about surpassing main sports activities groups in followers have been later corrected to “views.” This digital success, nonetheless, has not translated into mainstream acceptance. Many followers and fighters dismiss Energy Slap as “sanctioned mind trauma,” stating that opponents can’t defend themselves and should take full-force slaps to the face with out flinching.
Criticism from mind damage consultants is widespread. Neuroscientists and medical doctors have warned that the game is a “recipe for catastrophe,” with the potential for severe and even deadly mind accidents. Even some UFC fighters have distanced themselves from the game, with boxer Ryan Garcia calling it a “horrible concept” and UFC’s Sean O’Malley refusing to observe as a consequence of issues about mind injury.
In the meantime, Dana White has defended Energy Slap by evaluating it to boxing, arguing that slap fighters take far fewer blows per occasion than boxers, although critics word that boxers are not less than allowed to defend themselves.
