Dana White is officially jumping onboard the slap fighting hype train.
The UFC has released a spine-tingling promo video to announce its arrival on the slapping scene, unveiling their newest promotion called 'Power Slap'.
And, by the looks of things, it's going to be pure chaos.
The UFC is renowned for its slick videos to promote their upcoming events and they've taken that exact framework and applied it to their newest asset.
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From the sickening slow-mos to the overdramatised background music, the video plastered all across social media gives combat sports fans an insight into what this new code will have on offer.
The chalk flying off the chops, the intense staredowns and even the odd knockout – 'Power Slap' is poised to be all action.
On Instagram alone, the hype video has been played more than two million times.
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Meanwhile, the caption reads: "Presenting Power Slap. Don’t miss the introductory press conference 11/11 LIVE from New York City."
It was recently announced that mixed martial arts' premium promotion had made a presentation to the Nevada Athletic Commission (NAC) outlining their desire to enter the slap space.
And after the NAC agreed to welcome the exciting sport into its jurisdiction, the UFC wasted no time in bringing their vision to life.
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“We’ve spent the last year sort of beta-testing this in a controlled environment to really test and see the dynamic of how this would function as an actual league and real sport,” the UFC's chief business officer Hunter Campbell said.
“What we’ve found is that this is actually a skill sport that the participants, who are at a high level in this, are skilled athletes in. They train. They’re in good shape. They take it seriously, not dissimilar with what you see in MMA and boxing.”
But while some fight fans were eager to hear more about 'Power Slap', others didn't seem too fond of the concept.
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One of the top comments on Instagram read: "This is so dumb."
As another user added: "Yeah, proof society is going downhill."
A third agreed, commenting: "This is stupid af. When humans attention span is so short they can't appreciate ultimate human performance, then they start watching this s**t."
With concussion being such a hot topic within sport at the moment, the UFC has ensured that athlete safety is paramount, hence why they want NAC to oversee and regulate the sport.
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“Again, our approach was similar to the UFC: Move toward regulation before this is an actual thing” Campbell said.
“With any sort of combat when you’re taking shots to the head, to have it done in a way where there isn’t medical procedures and regulations put around it is an unsafe environment. The second issue is integrity of the sport. The other thing that we’ve seen is, you’ve seen instances where a guy might be 400 pounds, and he’s slapping a guy who’s 130 pounds. That’s also not what we’re looking to do.”
He added: “Really the appeal today is to say we believe the athletic commission has the jurisdiction to regulate the sport. Our concern is they choose not to do it. As this grows, you’re going to see, I call it, ‘the sports bar slap contest,’ where you have two 56 year-old guys dropped at a bar, and they’re going to be slapping each other for $200 in prize money. Ultimately nothing will be done to prevent that. That’s sort of the appeal to the commission.”
Max Sherry