Listen to this guy:

“I don’t give a shit what the media says about it. They don’t matter.” 

Fine, but I highly doubt that Power Slap has been “unbelievable” money-wise and “unbelievable as far as social goes.” It was canceled by TBS and had to go to Rumble after less than a year. UFC has been trying to shove Power Slap down to our throats so egregiously that most of the comments you see on IG and Twitter are people saying “stop pushing this on us,” or something to that effect. I finally had to block Power Slap on IG because the UFC account was sharing more slap content than actual UFC content.

Some data here from Awful Announcing:

Awful Announcing perused Power Slap’s social media account on Sunday night and found that they currently have 120,000 YouTube subscribers, 21,900 Twitter followers, 3.2 million TikTok followers, 868,000 Instagram followers, 177,000 Facebook followers, and 65,900 subscribers on their Rumble channel.

The NBA alone has 83 million Instagram followers, 19.2 million TikTok followers, and 20.4 million YouTube subscribers. Meanwhile, total video views across Formula One’s own digital platforms and social media in 2022 reached 4.9 billion. And as for WWE, they boast over 94 million YouTube subscribers, 21.3 million TikTok followers, 13.2 million Twitter followers, 28.1 million Instagram followers, and 42 million Facebook fans.

If we take White as his word, a social media following that large would lead you to believe that Power Slap was pulling in monster ratings on TBS. It’s strange, however, to note that it premiered with 295,000 viewers on January 18, peaked with 413,000 viewers on January 25, and finished with just 220,000 viewers on March 8.

Power Slap does well on TikTok and pulls millions of views on there, probably because it’s a fucking freak show. We’re talking short and easily-digested video clips of two idiots standing there slapping each other. I’m willing to bet that most of the engagement is from people who view the “sport” as the equivalent of some sort of circus act, like a train derailment they can’t take their eyes off of, at least for 5 seconds before swiping. If that’s the engagement they want, then so be it.

As a generic reminder, there is no redeeming quality to Power Slap. None whatsoever. The things that make MMA and combat sport enjoyable and intriguing are completely absent. There’s no footwork, no head movement, no defense, and no strategy. There is no takedown defense or octagon control or distance management. There is no feinting and trap setting. There is no clash of styles, i.e. a BJJ guy taking on a striker. It’s troglodyte entertainment for troglodytes.

MMA has come a long way over the years, and now boasts a more-educated fan base that understands what they’re watching. Dana, however, is trying to bring back the not-halcyon days of morons watching morons knock each other’s lights out. If he’s happy with how Power Slap is doing within a silo-like and heavily self-promoted ecosystem, then good for him, but comparing the popularity of this fucking slop to any kind of real sport is delusional.