Since UFC president Dana White announced he was stepping into the world of slap fighting, there have been questions about the safety of a “sport” that removes any suggestion of defense. Now, with the first Power Slap League episode in the rear-view mirror, those questions are turning into statements about just how unsafe this new combat sports spectacle seems to be.
Christopher Nowinski, a former Harvard football player-turned WWE wrestler—and one of the co-founders of the Concussion Legacy Foundation—wrote on Twitter of a Power Slap participant being knocked out, “This is so sad. Note the fencing posture with the first brain injury.