WASHINGTON, DC – JUNE 14: Fans engage in power slap interaction at the UFC Freedom 250 Fan Fest at the Ellipse on June 14, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Matt Ferris/Zuffa LLC, Getty Images)
Matt Ferris | UFC | Getty Images
With the rise of the UFC, mixed martial arts has seen an unprecedented rise in popularity in recent years. And according to UFC President and CEO Dana White, this may not be the last time he fights.
“(Powerslap) has the potential to be as big as the UFC,” White told Andrew Ross Sorkin at the CNBC Sports x Boardroom Game Plan Summit in New York City on Thursday.
“When you look at the numbers, Powerslap is the most-watched YouTube short video of all time for the sport, the most-watched video of any sport on TikTok of all time, those numbers are astronomical considering what we’re bringing to this,” he said. “And it’s global. It’s already a global business.”
Power Slap is an infamously brutal viral clip for those who may have missed it. In this competition, two competitors stand on a table in the center of a padded stage and deliver full-force slaps to each other with open palms until one of them is physically unable to recover. The combination of combat and shocking entertainment has captured the attention of viewers, and White’s bullishness about his rising popularity is more than just talk.
According to social media analytics platform Socialpruf, Power Slap has received 1.88 billion impressions over the past year, with its posts garnering approximately 40 million likes and earned media value of $48 million.
Many high-profile sponsors are cashing in on this wave of popularity and jumping at the chance to throw their name inside the Flying Palm. Anheuser-Busch, Monster Energy, VeChain, Circa Sports and 500 Casino are among the many brands that have bought into White’s vision for the sport.
“I thought sponsorship would be tough,” White said. “(Powerslap) has more sponsors (in the first two years) than the UFC has had in 10 years.”
Finding participants willing to take part in the beatdowns seen regularly in the world of powerslap may seem more difficult than finding advertisers. White emphasized toughness, grit and high pain tolerance as key considerations in pursuing this strange breed of talent.
“Every weekend, there are tens to hundreds of thousands of people wrestling all over the world. They jump from a stepladder to a table full of tackles for $50 a night,” he said. “These are the people I’m after.”
What makes slapboxing successful? White says two things apply to all successful sports: “You need to have a great live event, and you need to have a great event on TV.”
But Power Slap’s main viewership growth comes in the form of short videos posted to social media, rather than traditional live TV, so White placed particular emphasis on the latter element.
That’s also how White got his first glimpse of the sport.
“In 2017 and 2018, this stuff started showing up on my social media,” he said. “Everything I do in the martial arts industry I do instinctively, but I said this is interesting because of the fact that I want to watch it and see who wins.”
As he looked into it further, White said he saw how many views slapboxing had gained, which he said were “comparable to Justin Bieber’s videos at the time” on YouTube.
That led him to approach the Fertitta brothers, who had given up their stake in the UFC, to invest in the venture, which is set to launch in 2022.
White is also leading an investment in a boxing business called Zuffa Boxing, which aims to apply the same focused model adopted by the UFC.
White, who held his first event in January, said Zuffa Boxing is a better short-term bet than Power Slap due to the fact that “boxing has been broken for a long time.”
“We’ve been working on this for six months, and I can understand why it broke,” he said. “All the promoters I compete with are really bad at what they do…much less sophisticated than I expected.”
“The boxing business has always been incredible economically,” White said, adding that matches and cards can generate a lot of money. But, he added, “every time they fight, it’s like a going-out-of-business sale.”
Zuffa Boxing, like White’s other martial arts facilities, aims to put that money back into the hands of the fighters.
“Things are getting better and better,” White said of the fighter’s economic situation. “First of all, the Power Slap guys were giving free slaps when I bought the business. Now they’re getting paid very well. As for UFC fighters, their salaries have literally gone up like this since we bought the business,” he said, moving his hand straight up.
